Businessmen participating in the Manifesto-42 movement met with the authorities after the arrest of Ihor Mazepa

Representatives of business and government held a meeting on Monday to discuss the pressure on business, the catalyst for which was outrage over the arrest of investment banker Igor Mazepa, said Igor Liski, founder of the EFI Group investment holding, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

"On the positive side, the authorities responded quickly (Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko, and Deputy Prime Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov). They listened to us carefully, and it seemed to me that they heard us!" – he wrote.

According to him, the meeting featured many constructive proposals to change the legislation, up to and including radical steps "that a desperate business can take."

"I personally proposed to change not the legislation, but the approach and attitude towards entrepreneurs! The dramatic events in the country require rapid changes in the social contract, where law enforcement agencies will perform a different function, not a punitive one... and the attitude towards businesses that create jobs and pay taxes will turn into respect," Liski said.

According to him, the negative aspect is that all those present from the government have no real influence on the security forces.

"So I really hope that they will convey our demands and proposals to the president, and there will be real changes, not an attempt to hush up the problem," the businessman concluded.

The meeting was also attended by Daria Zarivna, Senior Advisor to the Head of the Presidential Office, and Oleksiy Sobolev, Deputy Minister of Economy.

The business community was represented by:

• Viktor Ivanchyk, co-owner and chairman of Astarta,
• Chairman of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine Dmytro Oliynyk
• Oleksandr Sokolovsky, Chairman of the Organization of Employers of Light Industry of Ukraine,
• Chairman of the Anti-Raider Union of Ukraine Andriy Semydidko,
• Yuriy Zozulya, owner of X-Park,
• Anatoliy Amelin, Director of Economic Programs at UIF.

Most of them, like Mazepa, are signatories of the Manifesto 42 civic movement.

"Earlier on Monday, Manifesto 42 announced a move to more radical forms of protest against the arbitrariness of the rear guard against business and announced that on February 1, companies would suspend operations for one hour if the government did not start solving the problem of pressure on business.

"We expect the state leadership to take the following steps by 12:00 p.m. on February 1, 2024, to address the problem that threatens the national security of the state: the President of Ukraine and the government should develop and submit to the Verkhovna Rada legislative initiatives developed by the Manifesto 42 social movement with the involvement of leading lawyers aimed at limiting the abuse of power by werewolves in uniform during searches, seizure of accounts and property," the initiative said in a statement.

The demands also include the initiation of a bill that would deprive all law enforcement agencies, except the BES, of the right to investigate economic crimes.

"Manifesto 42 also appealed to President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy to announce his position on searches of businesses without a court order and access to lawyers, taking into account Article 42 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to entrepreneurship, in the hope that Mazepa will be released from the pre-trial detention center.

As reported, on January 18, SBI officers together with the National Police detained Mazepa on the Ukrainian-Polish border on charges of organizing a scheme to illegally seize 2.4 hectares of land, which allegedly houses hydraulic structures of critical infrastructure – the Kyiv HPP, and is currently home to the premium cottage community Goodlife Park. It was noted that three more people, including Mazepa's brother, were detained in different regions of Ukraine, and searches were conducted at the office of Concorde Capital and the offices of some of its employees.

The SBI noted that the defendants face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

"The Manifesto 42 was created by businesses in the summer of 2023 with the stated goal of protecting them from the arbitrariness of rear security forces, corrupt officials and judges, black notaries and registrars. It was signed by 42 representatives of businesses and investors. At the end of June, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with business, after which a coordination platform for reviewing relations with business was launched in the Presidential Office, headed by Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Rostyslav Shurma, and the first meeting was also attended by Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Oleh Tatarov, but in recent months there has been no information on the positive results of the platform's work.