MP Oleksii Goncharenko has officially been expelled from the European Solidarity parliamentary group. The decision was announced at a sitting on 14 October by the First Deputy Speaker.
Goncharenko was elected in a single-member constituency, so expulsion from the group will not lead to the loss of his mandate. He ran in constituency 137 in Odesa Region.
“I have been expelled from the European Solidarity group. This has just been announced from the Verkhovna Rada rostrum. I thank my colleagues for 12 years of work. Together we managed to achieve major changes in Ukraine and we will continue working for Ukraine,” the politician commented.
Goncharenko was not a member of the party. He sits on the Verkhovna Rada Budget Committee.
The decision by European Solidarity to expel Goncharenko was taken after his statements about the need to make concessions to Russia. In particular, he proposed initiating the lifting of sanctions on its energy sector in exchange for an end to Russian strikes on ports and energy facilities.
He wrote about this on social media and published it in a column on Ukrainska Pravda. At the same time, the politician maintained that there were no calls for capitulation in his arguments. The group said it could not continue a shared political path because of ideological differences.