Minerals deal. Rada adopts amendments to the Budget Code in the first reading

On May 13, the Verkhovna Rada adopted as a basis the draft law No. 13256 on amendments to the Budget Code to implement the intergovernmental agreement on mineral resources between Ukraine and the United States. The vote took place almost immediately after the draft law was considered by the Budget Committee.

"Changes to the Budget Code are needed to implement the provision on replenishing the American-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund," explained the chairwoman of the committee Roksolana Pidlasa.

Under the terms of the Agreement, Ukraine's contribution to this fund will consist of half of the revenues received after the document enters into force, in particular:

• rents for the extraction of minerals (oil, gas, condensate and others from the list in Appendix A to the Agreement) from new licenses;
• payments for new special permits for the use of subsoil;
• revenues from the sale of the state share of production under new production sharing agreements.

These funds will be credited to a special fund of the state budget and will later be transferred to the Reconstruction Fund by decision of the main administrator (presumably the Ministry of Economy).

Pidlasa noted that if the Agreement had been signed in 2019, Ukraine's contribution could have amounted to about UAH 3 billion over 5 years.

"I believe that this code should be voted on as a whole, and according to the law "On International Treaties" this should have been done simultaneously with the ratification of the Agreement, but the factions are consistently against it," Pidlasa added.

• On the night of May 1, Ukraine and the United States signed an agreement to establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund (the so-called subsoil agreement) . The Cabinet of Ministers subsequently published the full text of the agreement.