Kyiv and Washington signed the long-awaited mineral deal on Wednesday, breaking a longstanding stalemate that has at times plagued relations between the two nations.
But Wednesday’s breakthrough only applies to one agreement, with two more to follow – then Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, will need to vote on them, then the individual committees will have to adopt the relevant law changes to implement the agreement.
Here’s the step-by-step process.
Wanting to do it vs actually doing it
Put simply, a memorandum, signed April 17, meant everyone wanted it to happen, the Wednesday, April 30 agreement confirms it is happening, and now both Kyiv and Washington are tasked with actually making it happen.
“The Government of Ukraine shall take all steps to empower its agencies and instrumentalities to execute and implement this Agreement and the LP Agreement, including by adopting, maintaining, and enforcing legislation as may be required to execute and implement this Agreement and the LP Agreement, including for the purposes of legal stabilization,” the agreement states.
Likewise, the US legislative branch will also need to implement related changes to make it happen.
However, as lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak pointed out in his Telegram update, the agreement is only the first, with other similar documents that outline the technical aspects for the deal to follow.
Review, vote, then change the law
After the agreements are signed, lawmakers in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada will be briefed on the documents by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, and they will vote on them in the near future.
After ratification, President Volodymyr Zelensky will sign them into law. In addition, lawmakers in the parliamentary committees will need to amend relevant laws to make the agreement work.
According to Zheleznyak, the agreement signed on Wednesday is the “political part,” which needs to be ratified before other documents are signed.
“Yesterday we signed the first part: political – intergovernmental. There are mostly general formulations. It will require ratification,” he said in a Thursday Telegram update.
“Then there are two more parts: 2) the agreement between the [US International Development Finance Corporation] DFC and the Agency from Ukraine (this is after ratification), 3) the technical part of how it will operate and be distributed,” he added.
Then comes the process of changing the law, Zheleznyak said.
“A number of laws will still need to be changed, including the Budget and Tax Codes separately.”
Timeline
There are no solid timelines yet, but Zheleznyak said Shmyhal will brief lawmakers at 10 a.m. on Friday.
As for the ratification of the first agreement, he said in an earlier announcement that the “nearest date” is sometime between May 13 and May 15.
“And that’s if they manage to submit everything to the Rada. Interstate agreements have separate procedures that are difficult to speed up,” he said.
Assuming the Verkhovna Rada ratifies the first agreement this month, there will still be a need to then ratify subsequent agreements and then change the laws.
As such, the deal is unlikely to come online in the near future.