Marc Berenson: Ukraine needs to choose a model for further development

Associate Professor Marc Berenson from King's College London believes that Ukraine needs to decide on further development model for further progress. He stated this during the 12th Kyiv Security Forum organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Open Ukraine Foundation.

Mr.Berenson noted that in Ukraine the state and civil society never agreed upon the direction of development, and this led to the fact that the level of public confidence in the authorities became one of the lowest in the world - 9%. This creates problems with tax revenues as well as with fight against corruption. And in order to succeed, Ukraine needs to develop a direction of movement that will suit the majority.

"First of all, there should be a large-scale intellectual debate regarding what country, what kind of society Ukraine will be. And it is not about whether it would be a democracy or some other system, but about what kind of democracy, what kind of social state? Because in the world there are a lot of their varieties, "- Mr. Berenson said.

He added that changes can be launched through specific areas, such as the formation of new tax offices, as it was in Poland, or reforms like the formation of a new police force that received public support in Ukraine.

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The annual international event Kyiv Security Forum was launched by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Open Ukraine Foundation in 2007. Since then, the Forum has become a platform for high-level international discussions on current issues of national security, security issues of the Black Sea region, Europe and the world.