EU Releases 600 Million Euros In Aid To Shore Up Shaky Ukraine Economy
The European Commission has agreed to send Ukraine 600 million euros to shore up its deteriorating economy, ending months of delays over conditions linked to the loan.
With Ukraine in a third year of war, the European Union softened demands that Kyiv first lift a ban on Ukrainian wood exports, saying the money could now be sent because the government had submitted a bill to change that policy.
"Ukraine has done a remarkable job of stabilizing and reforming its economy, despite the armed conflict unfolding on its soil," Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said on March 16.
The conditions the EU has attached to the aid are aimed at modernizing the economy and ridding Kyiv of entrenched corruption.
The aid payment takes the total of EU loans to Ukraine to 2.8 billion euros since 2014. Kyiv badly needs the money. It estimates that a blockade of trade with eastern areas held by Russia-backed separatists that was announced this week would cause the economy to shrink by 2 percent.
In February, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker promised to release the aide to Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman. A final 600 million euro disbursement is still available under an aid package that expires next January.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
OSCE Prolongs Mission In Ukraine By One Year, Amid Rising Tensions
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on March 16 prolonged its monitoring mission in Ukraine by one year -- until March 2018.
Three years after Moscow illegally annexed the Crimean region, tensions between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists are still high and a 2015 cease-fire agreement is violated regularly.
Fighting has claimed the lives of at least 20 civilians since the start of the year and wounded almost 100 more, according to the United Nations. In recent weeks, the observers have reported a deteriorating security situation in eastern Ukraine and an increase in the number of cease-fire violations.
The unarmed, civilian OSCE mission, with more than 700 international observers, seeks to reduce tensions and report on the situation on the ground. The 57 member states of the OSCE, which include Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, decided by consensus to extend the mandate of the mission until March 31, 2018, the OSCE said.
The mission was first deployed in 2014 and this was its third extension. It will have a budget of 105.5 million euros for the year, enabling the staff to upgrade monitoring equipment.
Based on reporting by Reuters and TASS
Quite a bit of news from Ukraine this morning. Let's start with this story from our News Desk:
Ukraine's Suspended Tax Chief Released On $3.7 Million Bail
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Ukraine's suspended tax and customs service chief, Roman Nasirov, has been released on bail from his two-month pretrial detention on embezzlement charges.
Nasirov's wife paid 100 million hryvnyas ($3.7 million) bail for Nasirov's release. He should now be transferred to house arrest.
In a rare attempt to prosecute a high-level official in Ukraine over alleged corruption, Nasirov is being investigated on suspicion of defrauding the state of 2 billion hryvnyas ($74 million).
Nasirov was suspended from his post on March 3 and a district court in Kyiv on March 7 ordered him placed in pretrial detention for two months.
Ukraine’s National Anticorruption Bureau says Nasirov signed off on grace periods for a number of taxpayers, including companies linked to a former lawmaker who fled the country in 2016 while facing a corruption investigation.
President Petro Poroshenko and Ukraine’s government are under pressure from Ukrainians and Western countries to fight corruption.
Critics say corruption runs so deep in Ukraine that it hurts the country’s chances of throwing off the influence of Russia, which seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backs separatists in eastern Ukraine.
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Thursday, March 16, 2016. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading and take care.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
