Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that the European Commission (EC) has made a favorable decision on the provision of a first tranche of the fourth macrofinancial assistance of the European Union (EU) to Ukraine in the amount of EUR 500 million and thanked the European Commission for its decision.
“Sincerely grateful to the European Commission for positive decision to disburse to Ukraine first tranche of the 4th EU macrofinancial assistance program in the amount of EUR 500 mln,” Poroshenko said on its Facebook page on Friday.
The head of state said that he highly appreciates personal support of EC President Jan-Claude Juncker and EC Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue Valdis Dombrovskis in the spirit of the agreements in Helsinki early November.
Poroshenko said that the decision of the EC is “very important signal of the unwavering assistance of the European Union against the recent challenges from the Russian aggressor.”
According a report of the European Commission published on Friday, Ukraine has fulfilled the policy commitments agreed with the EU for the release of the first payment under the programme.
These included important measures to step up the fight against corruption, improve transparency of company registers, enhance the predictability of the tax environment and strengthen the governance of state-owned enterprises. Ukraine has also agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a new Stand-by Arrangement, which will replace its previous programme under the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility, thus continuing the country’s engagement with the IMF.
“The EU will continue working with the Ukrainian authorities on its reform agenda, including in those areas related to the next disbursement of the MFA programme. These include further measures in the fight against corruption, such as progress in making the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine operational, public financial management, the continuation of reforms of the energy and banking sectors and reforms in the area of social policy,” the commission said.
With this disbursement, the total Macro-Financial Assistance extended to Ukraine by the EU since 2014 will reach EUR 3.3 billion, the largest amount of such assistance directed at any non-EU country.
