Max Planck Foundation signs an MoU with Valeria Lutkovska, the Ukrainian Parliament’s ombudsperson for human rights
On 20 April 2015, Foundation staff members travelled to Kiev in order to discuss the details of the cooperation and to jointly draw up a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which provides for a close cooperation between the Ukraine Parliament and the Max Planck Foundation in the area of antidiscrimination. It is planned to hold a series of seminars in various parts of the country in which the staff members from the office of the ombudsperson and other public institutions as well as from non-governmental organisations will become more familiar with the legal framework for protection against discrimination. In addition, Ms Lutkovska and her co-workers requested that Foundation staff members train them in European ‘best practices’, i.e. particularly successful approaches for combating discrimination.
Foundation staff members held further discussions with representatives from the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, the OSCE mission to Kiev and Ukrainian academics.
There are many minorities that are affected by discrimination in Ukraine due to their origin, religion, sexual orientation or other reasons. The situation has been partially exacerbated by the conflict in the east of the country. The planned project activities are expected to start on 1 July 2015.