The Vice-President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, indicated that, according to a “preliminary study” by the European institution, the Ukrainian government has fulfilled the socioeconomic policy conditions for the disbursement of the second tranche of “500 million euros” from the macroeconomic assistance plan on Tuesday 28 January, following a meeting with the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Oleksiy Honcharuk (see EUROPE 12096/16).
This second and final tranche will be paid in the “first quarter”, Mr Honcharuk said. Before then, the conditions requested by the IMF in the context of a specific rescue package will also have to be met.
According to Mr Dombrovskis, the Commission is “impressed” by the amount of reform that Mr Honcharuk’s government has undertaken in recent months. He cited measures to strengthen the rule of law and “fight corruption”, the latter having been one of the conditions for the formalization of this macroeconomic assistance plan.
The ongoing reform of land ownership in Ukraine, where the country’s fertile agricultural land is attracting the interest of foreign investors, was among the topics discussed at the meeting. We understand the importance of placing “safeguards” in this sensitive reform package to protect small farmers and to proceed in a gradual manner, Dombrovskis said. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)