European Union ambassadors on May 29 endorsed the provision of another 1 billion euros in macro-financial assistance for Ukraine.
The new loans from EU will cover all of Ukraine’s financial needs over a period of two-and-a-half years, reads an official statement published on the European Council website published on May 29.
Although the decision still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and European Council, both will be called on to adopt the decision without further discussion.
“We can definitely say that only formalities are left. Ukraine will sure get the financial support from EU. It is a matter of a couple of weeks,” an EU official told the Kyiv Post on May 29.
However, Ukraine will get further macro-financial assistance only if there is progress in corruption prevention, as well as progress in the International Monetary Fund program for Ukraine, the statement reads.
That means Ukraine will need to strengthen governance, administrative capabilities and the institutional set-up for preventing corruption.
On each disbursement, the EU Commission will report publicly on the fulfillment of the conditions, in particular, those concerning the prevention of corruption.
The creation of an independent anti-corruption court wasn’t directly mentioned in the new statement. But Ukraine’s civil society and the West have been demanding the launch of the independent anti-graft court since the end of 2016.
Also in December, lawmakers extended the agricultural land moratorium until 2019, violating an IMF condition that the country create an agricultural land market. Increasing the gas prices to the European market level was also one of the donors’ crucial demands, but that has also been ignored by the Ukrainian government.
The Kyiv Post reported in January that EU had pledged more than 12 billion euros for Ukraine, including a 2.81-billion-euro financial assistance program, more than 3 billion euros in loans, and investments, and more than 879 million euros in grants.
However, the EU canceled the final 600,000-euro payment of the previous macro-financial assistance program in January, as Ukraine had failed to meet all of the conditions set.
The halt in positive changes in key sectors of Ukraine’s economy and politics led to the stalling of international financial aid disbursals in 2017.
Ukraine received the last $1 billion loan tranche of the IMF’s $17.5 bailout program in April, three years into the program, with the total disbursed so far being $8.6 billion, IMF Resident Representative to Ukraine Gosta Ljungman told the Kyiv Post on Dec. 4.
However, by this time the IMF had expected to disburse much more – about $14.5 billion by November 2017.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities and the nation’s foreign donors have entered the final stage of talks on creating an anti-corruption court.
The Verkhovna Rada on May 23 and May 24 considered hundreds of amendments to a bill to create the court but did not have enough time to pass the bill itself at second reading as of 4 p.m. on May 24. It was adopted at first reading on March 1.
The negotiations between Ukraine and its foreign partners on the anti-corruption court have been lambasted by members of the Public Integrity Council, the judiciary’s civil society watchdog. They believe foreign donors have been deceived by Ukrainian authorities, which will now get Western money but will still be able to rig the competition to select anti-corruption judges.
