Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Feb. 4 signed a law that extends the moratorium on the sale of farmland in Ukraine until 2020, according to the parliament’s website.
Parliament passed the law on Dec. 20, 2018, before the expiration of the previous moratorium extension on Dec. 31, 2018. However, the new law technically came into force only after the president has signed it.
Therefore, legally the moratorium was not in effect for over a month, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 3, 2019.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade on Jan. 23 advised Poroshenko to veto the law, saying that it violates the property rights of the citizens.
The European Court of Human Rights recognized the moratorium as a violation of human rights on May 22, 2018 and obliged Ukraine to pass a more balanced law.
In its ruling on the “Zelenchuk and Tsytsyura v. Ukraine” case, the EHCR said that Ukraine “had not struck a fair balance between the general interests of the community and the applicants’ property rights.”
The creation of a properly functioning land market is one of the conditions for the continuation of cooperation between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund.
The moratorium was first imposed in 2002.
