Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk counts on receiving 500 million euros of the second tranche of EU macrofinancial assistance in the first quarter of 2020.
“This second tranche can be received in the first quarter of this year, in the near future, in the coming weeks or months,” Honcharuk said at a joint briefing with Executive Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis on Jan. 28 in Brussels.
The prime minister said that the European Union confirmed that Ukraine has met all the conditions for receiving the second tranche of macrofinancial assistance in the amount of 500 million euros.
In turn, according to Dombrovskis, the assessment of the European Commission consists in the fact that all the conditions that were associated with the provision of the second tranche of the current program of macrofinancial assistance have been met.
“The European Commission has already begun an internal procedure in order to prepare the provision of the funds,” he said.
At the same time, the executive vice president said that the provision of this tranche is also linked to the program of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, as the Ukrainian prime minister assured him, there is progress in this direction.
“This [the provision of the tranche] will be possible in the first quarter of this year,” the EU representative said.
Asked by Interfax-Ukraine about a possible new macro-financial assistance program for Ukraine, Dombrovskis said that with regard to the new program, it is premature to start discussing what the next steps and the next macro-financial assistance program may be. He said that he thinks that the first step, which needs to be done, is to complete the existing program, get the second tranche, and only then discuss what the next steps will be.
