Another tranche for Ukraine in exchange for transparent subsidies to agrarians

Submitted by bashun on Tue, 03/13/2018 - 10:15

All-Ukrainian protest action that was organised by the Ukrainian Stock breeders Association on March 6 under the walls of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine appeared to be very fruitful. Agricultural producers from all over Ukraine defended their rights to an honest and transparent distribution of state subsidies, and finally they were heard. However ... not by Ukrainian officials, and not by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, but by the European Parliament.

Thanks to the actions of the chairman of the Association Iryna Palamar, attention was paid to the problem of livestock producers. The day after the rally, on March 7, the European Parliament held a roundtable in which deputies Fulvio Martustcello and Alberto Sirio initiated a discussion on the opaque distribution of state subsidies in the sphere of the Ukrainian agro-industrial complex. The opinion of the European Parliament deputies fully coincides with the position of the USBA: the distribution schemes contain signs of corruption, they are opaque and shadow.

In particular, the deputy of the European Parliament Alberto Sirio notes that state subsidies are distributed according to the corruption mechanism, and tens of thousands of small and medium-sized farms that really need state support do not get on the list of those who receive these subsidies.

All this situation around the distribution of state subsidies may negatively affect the allocation of a new tranche of the EU to Ukraine, because even on February 28, 2018 the European Commission agreed for Ukraine a new package of macro-financial assistance in the amount of 1 billion euros. The very process of allocating financial assistance is closely connected with the introduction of real tools to combat corruption, including in the sphere of agro-industrial complex.

As we see, the problem of agrarians, which was repeatedly voiced by the Ukrainian Stock Breeders Association, was recognized at the level of the European Union. Deputies of the European Parliament heard what hurts Ukrainians, while the Ukrainian authorities pretend that nothing has happened.

Perhaps the threat of canceling a financial tranche for Ukraine will become a more weighty argument for our officials and force them to review the procedure for allocating funds and listening to people.

English

Read more