Ukraine ratifies €1 billion aid agreement with the EU
On Friday, November 16, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed the decree ratifying the Memorandum of Understanding between Ukraine and the European Union and the loan agreement for EUR 1 billion in macro financial assistance, reported the President’s press service.
These documents were signed on September 14, 2018 in Kyiv in the presence of Poroshenko and Prime-Minister Volodymyr Groysman, between the Vice President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, Acting Finance Minister of Ukraine Oksana Markarova and the Head of the National Bank, Yakov Smolii. The Verkhovna Rada ratified the loan agreement on November 8, 2018.
Before receiving two tranches in the amount of up to 500 million Euro, Ukraine must implement the agreed measures regarding the realization of the tax and customs policy, combating corruption, privatization, management of state-owned enterprises, corporate management in the state banks and banking supervision, reforms in energy, health care and social security.
The allocation of micro-financial assistance is bound to the program of the International Monetary Fund. It will be the fourth such program. The first two were opened in 2014-2015 where the EU Commission allocated 1.61 billion euro to Ukraine. Ukraine received another 1.2 billion euro within the third program in 2015 and 2017 years. The last third tranche was not received due to the Kyiv’s failure to implement the EU’s requirements.