Rada moves to simplify review of IMF-required banking law

Ukraine’s parliament,  the Verkhovna Rada,
approved a bill on Apr. 16 that enables the shortening of the review process of
excessive amendments to draft bills. The initiative was supported by 242 MPs,
compared to 226 votes needed. It surfaced in response to more than 16,000 amendments dumped on the banking resolution
bill required by the IMF (the so-called anti-Kolomoisky
law that prevents the return of failed banks to their former owners). In its
normal mode, the Rada would have to review all the amendments in the session
hall for more than five months. Instead, the adopted measure enables reviewing
the amendments under a simplified procedure.

After being signed by the president, the special law allows
for initiating a simplified procedure for reviewing a bill with over 500
amendment proposals, if such procedure has the support of a majority of MPs. If
so, the committee responsible for drafting the bill in the second reading
decides whether to account for or reject each amendment submitted for the final
draft. Afterwards, each parliamentary faction can insist that the Rada consider
up to five rejected amendments in the session hall. An MP who is not a member
of a faction has the right to insist on voting for one amendment that was
rejected by the committee.

Shortly after the Rada approved the bill on simplified
procedure, at least four MPs filed draft resolutions to cancel it. So the
president cannot sign the adopted bill to make it law before the Rada gathers
one more time to reject the draft resolutions.

Alexander Paraschiy: The saga
around the anti-Kolomoisky law is developing perfectly in line with the expectations of MP Oleksandr Korniyenko,
who voiced on Apr. 13 the approval of the simplified procedure bill, whose
signing had been blocked for at least one week. If Rada is able to gather in
the nearest two weeks to remove the latest obstacles, the bill will become law
by end-April. If so, the MPs will be able to approve the anti-Kolomoisky bill
in early May and the president can sign it one week after, paving the way for
Ukraine to sign a deal with the IMF.

Therefore, under such a scenario, Ukraine can count
on receiving IMF support (as well as possible support from the E.U. and the
World Bank) by end-May. We again warn that there are risks for such a scenario,
as there could be active sabotage attempts by the allies to Ihor Kolomoisky.
Ultimately, we see the likelihood of an IMF deal in May as high.