Deepening divisions within the Ukrainian government coalition

After a very heated debate, on 29 December 2014 the Ukrainian parliament adopted the budget for 2015, as well as significant changes in the tax laws. The legislation was adopted without being considered by parliamentary committees, or even without the government showing MPs a draft text of the Act before the vote. The budget adopted is only temporary, and will be heavily revised by mid-February. This way of proceeding met with resistance from most of the parties making up the coalition, which was most strongly expressed by the Self-Reliance and Radical parties. President Petro Poroshenko came to parliament in order to personally discipline a section of his Bloc, and Volodymyr Groysman, the speaker of parliament who is associated with the President, stretched the parliamentary session late into the night to force the MPs to support the budget. Nevertheless, the project was supported by only 233 of the coalition’s 308 deputies.