The European Commission (EC) has urged Ukrainian authorities to investigate into attacks on activists in the country, pointed out the slow in judicial reforms, the implementation of anti-corruption measures and the absence of progress in the sphere of investigation of economic crimes.
According to the Association Implementation Report posted on the website of the European Commission prepared by the European External Action Service and the European Commission, there have been only few convictions in high-level corruption cases so far and the establishment of the High Anti-Corruption Court remains a test case in this regard.
The European Commission commended some economic and sectoral reforms, in particular, regarding management of state-owned enterprises and privatization of small assets.
“Furthermore, while steps have been taken towards recovering embezzled funds of almost $5.5 billion of PrivatBank prior to its nationalization by filing court cases, there is little progress so far on the recovery of the misappropriated state funds as well as on related measures of prosecution,” the European Commission said in the report.
A long overdue medium-term consolidated and comprehensive reform plan for the State Fiscal Service has not yet been adopted by the government, the commission said.
“The function of investigation of economic crimes remains underdeveloped; several draft laws on establishing a new institution to deal with financial crimes are registered in the parliament. Yet, a political consensus on setting up a professional, politically neutral and analytical new body is outstanding,” the commission said.
It is also essential that the Ukrainian authorities maintain and reinforce the reform momentum, including on the fight against corruption, ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held in March and October 2019 respectively.
