Ukraine may lose part of its EU funding under the Ukraine Facility program for the first time. The reason is the untimely implementation of reforms, the European Commission said in its response to a request from Radio Liberty. The PromPolitInform portal reports.
According to a spokesman for the European Commission, two stages related to previous tranches of assistance that Kyiv has already received remain unfulfilled.
“There are two steps related to the 4th and 5th tranches that were not completed on time. The amounts related to these tranches have been “suspended”. This means that they have not yet been paid,” he noted.
This is about 300 million euros within the fourth tranche and over 380 million euros within the fifth. The European Commission explained which points Ukraine had not fulfilled:
“increase in the number of personnel of the High Anti-Corruption Court” within the fourth tranche;
“entry into force of the legislation on the revision of judges’ declarations of integrity and the procedure for their verification” within the fifth.
The deadlines for the conditions are June 30 and September 29. The European Commission emphasized that in case of untimely fulfillment of the requirements, Brussels may apply the procedure for the final reduction of payments. Although the program mechanism provides for some flexibility due to the war.
“A flexibility mechanism was introduced for Ukraine. This was provided for by the regulation — there is some additional time for the implementation of reforms,” the European Commission said.
At the same time, it emphasized that, despite the difficult circumstances, Ukraine is demonstrating “significant progress” in implementing reforms.
It was previously reported that in order to receive the first tranche of the 90 billion euro loan, Ukraine must fulfill a number of tax requirements. In particular, we are talking about taxation of digital platforms.
