Ukrainian agrarian minister resigns

Ukrainian Minister of Agrarian Policy Taras Kutovyi filed a resignation request on May 23, he reported via a social media post the same day. He thanked the PM for commonly realized initiatives, especially for a program of state support of agrarian business in Ukraine. He listed no reasons for his resignation.

According to epravda.com.ua news site, which collected comments from representatives of the government and presidential administration, the reason for Kutovyi’s resignation was his disagreement on “land reform” in terms of the way it is offered by the government. Also, epravda.com.ua mentioned about Kutovyi’s tough relationships with the PM “who imposed upon him first deputy minister Maksym Martyniuk” thus limiting the minister’s power.

Alexander Paraschiy: Kutovyi seems to be opposing Groysman’s version of the land reform, which allows for the sale of agricultural land only to Ukrainian individuals, with an ownership limit of 200 hectares per person (this idea is also being criticized by large agri holdings like Kernel). Also, he was unable to get the government’s support of his initiative to openly privatize the assets of Ukrspirt, the monopoly producer of ethyl alcohol. On top of that, it looks indeed that Kutovyi was not a key decision-maker in the ministry, as his first deputy Martyniuk is an old colleague of Ukrainian PM (he was a part of Groysman’s team when Groysman was the mayor of the city of Vinnytsia). Kutovyi’s resignation may allow the prime minister to put a more loyal person in the post and push his own version of land reform, thus increasing the chance of its approval. Recall, land reform is one of the key demands from the IMF to get the next tranche.