EU Commission Urges Kyiv to Reinstate Anti-Corruption System

As it was made clear in the statement issued by the EU delegation, the decision of the Constitutional Court calls into question a number of international commitments which Ukraine assumed in relation to its international partners, including the EU, said a spokesperson of the Commission to Promote Ukraine. He made the following statement:

“We urge the Ukrainian authorities to take steps to reinstate as soon as possible the necessary conditions for the effective functioning of the anti-corruption system in Ukraine, in compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine. We are ready to assist in ways to bring back the necessary legal certainty aiming at ensuring the effective system for the prevention of corruption in Ukraine.

The EU attributes great importance to the fight against corruption.

The fight against corruption is one of the key benchmarks and commitments Ukraine has taken in the framework of the Visa liberalisation process. The independent and effective operation of the anti-corruption institutions is also a condition under the recently agreed Macro-Financial Assistance programme between the EU and Ukraine. It is crucial to ensure irreversibility of all the reform efforts.

While the last Visa Suspension Mechanism Report adopted on 10 July 2020 confirmed that Ukraine continued to fulfil the visa liberalisation benchmarks, it has also stated that Ukraine needs to ‘Ensure the independence, effectiveness and sustainability of the anti-corruption institutional framework and avoid politicisation of the work of all law enforcement agencies.[…] Ensure that the relaunched National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption credibly fulfils its mandate, including by continuing to operate a fully functioning and effective system for the verification of asset declarations.’ The Commission will take stock of the situation in the next report.

Ukraine’s Constitutional Court Decision of 27 October 2020 has far-reaching implications for the anti-corruption system in Ukraine, in particular on the core rights and powers of the National Agency on the Prevention of Corruption, including to store, publish and verify electronic asset declarations of public servants, on the open public access to the register of electronic asset declarations, as well as on the liability for declaring false information.

We expect Ukraine to demonstrate its commitment to continuously fulfil the anti-corruption benchmarks, which are an essential part of the visa-free regime.”