Week’s balance: Easing from Cabinet, warnings from National Bank and new portion of promises from EU

Olesia Safronova

The Ukrainian Government canceled 367 regulations, the National Bank has softened a number of foreign exchange restrictions, while the European Union put forward conditions for Ukraine to receive a EUR 600 million assistance package , at the same time failing to resolve the main political issue of the past years - the introduction of a visa-free regime. These are the main economic news of the outgoing week.

This has been a rather difficult week for Ukraine. The anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity, one of the major events in the country’s recent history, coincided with the Ukraine – EU summit, which in many ways was a landmark for Ukraine because a key issue on its agenda was visa liberalization. Three years ago, millions of Ukrainians took to the streets of their cities because of their reluctance to tolerate lawlessness of authorities and because of the opportunistic reversal of Ukraine’s foreign policy toward Russia and the rejection of the country’s European future in favor of gas discounts or the purchase of government bonds by the government of the neighboring country. 

Since the time of the Maidan, Ukraine has experienced many dramatic events – the annexation of Crimea, the war in the east, Moscow-imposed trade restrictions, the loss of 20% of the production capacity, and the need for serious reforms under the circumstances when every “free” hryvnia is allocated for the army and defenses, rather than the economy.

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