EU to Amend Ukraine Facility Rules: Ukraine Will Not Lose €300M for Incomplete HACC Vacancy Filling

The European Union will revise the rules of the Ukraine Facility program, allowing Ukraine not to lose financial assistance despite incomplete fulfillment of last year's indicator regarding filling vacancies in the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC). This was announced by Deputy Minister of Economy Daria Marchak in response to a question from «European Pravda».

According to Marchak, as part of the program rules revision, the EU agreed to change the procedure for crediting quantitative indicators. Previously, the rule stipulated that 100% fulfillment of an indicator was required to credit the entire step, even if only 1% remained unfulfilled. The European Commission recognized this approach as incorrect and is now considering the possibility of crediting partial fulfillment if the indicator has been substantially met.

New Ukraine Facility rules will also apply to indicators from the previous phase of the program, including Ukraine's obligation to fill HACC vacancies. The deadline for this indicator expired a year ago, in mid-2023. The first competition for judicial selection proved unsuccessful. In the competition that concluded in May, Ukraine was supposed to select 24 HACC judges, but after screening, the qualification commission approved only 22 candidates. Ukraine has two more months for their appointment, but it is impossible to conduct a new competition within this timeframe.

Thanks to these changes, Kyiv gets a chance not to lose approximately 300 million euros allocated for the fulfillment of this indicator. The government also noted that other changes to the EU financial assistance rules are now «tied» to European integration. Earlier, European Commissioner Kos warned deputies during a visit to Kyiv about a possible loss of funding, but after that, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a controversial «European integration» draft on judicial reform.