All-Ukrainian union
“Freedom” counts on collecting signatures in support of holding a referendum on
giving Crimea the status of a region of Ukraine.
The chairman of the union
Oleh Tyagnybok told IMC.
According to him, the law
on referendum provides for collecting 3 million signatures in 2/3 regions of Ukraine, 100 thousand signatures in each
region. “We have 3 months to do the work, as the signatures will not be faked,”
Tyagnybok said.
In his opinion, if the
Ukrainian authorities don’t interfere into the issue concerning territorial
integrity of Ukraine, our country might have serious
problems in future. “The fate of Crimea, as well of any other part of Ukraine, must be determined by the whole Ukraine,” he considers.
The leader of “Freedom”
noted that after the referendum the parliament should introduce changes into
the Constitution of Ukraine, to change the state of the autonomy from
republican into regional and to cancel the special status of the city Sevastopol.
“We propose to turn Sevastopol into a free economic zone and to
give its residents an opportunity to earn money not due to the Russian military
base, but due to the economic activities of the port,” Tyagnybok said.
He underlined that if Crimea became a region it would be more
difficult to separate it from Ukraine than when it remained the autonomy.
Tyagnybok also considers it
is necessary to adopt a state program on integration of Crimean part in the
Ukrainian society. “We can’t just technically change the status. We must also
hold the so-called integration process,” he summed up.
