Zelenskyy is delaying Ukraine’s receipt of 250 million euros, - media
President Zelenskyy has four weeks left to meet one of the Ukraine Facility’s benchmarks and avoid losing 250 million euros in aid for Ukraine.
This is reported in an article by European Pravda, according to Censor.NET.
Details
Ukraine has nearly fulfilled the conditions, notably by successfully completing the competition to select judges for the High Anti-Corruption Court.
"The only thing left is the president’s decision to appoint them to the High Anti-Corruption Court. If we go by the requirements of the law, this is more of a formality, since the head of state is obligated to appoint them. The only question is whether to do so on time—and receive the funds allocated by the European Commission—or to miss the deadline—and "burn" a rather significant sum.
It would seem the choice is obvious. But the president has been dragging his feet on the decision for over a month now, and there is no certainty that the deadline will not be missed," the publication writes.
The authors note that monitoring of Ukraine’s implementation of the Plan—prepared monthly by representatives of the RRR4U consortium—shows that, as time goes on, Ukraine is missing the deadlines for an increasing number of indicators.
"Behind each of these indicators lies a sum of support from the EU. But while it was ‘only’ a matter of not receiving funds on time and postponing the fulfillment of requirements to the future, we have now reached a critical threshold.
After a certain period, the funds reserved for Ukraine are ‘burned’—they remain in the EU budget and are removed from the plans for aid to Ukraine," the article notes.
At the same time, the reform commitments do not disappear, as they are stipulated in other documents—such as the "benchmarks" for the EU accession process. The only difference is that in those documents, they are not tied to specific European funding.
According to media sources, Ukraine has less than a month left—approximately until September 17.
Background
- As a reminder, the Ukraine Facility program provides for 50 billion euros in aid to Ukraine until 2027. Disbursements are directly tied to the implementation of reforms and indicators agreed upon between Kyiv and the EU.
