The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, which established a Coordination Center for the Organization of Reservations at its meeting on October 23, initiated a review of sectoral and regional criteria for determining critical importance, taking into account new requirements, within 10 days, and updated the reservation limits for certain categories of enterprises, according to a Saturday announcement on the website of the Ministry of Economy and Environment of Ukraine.
“The government’s decision clarifies the definition of critical importance. In this regard, central executive authorities and regional military administrations must review sectoral and regional criticality criteria in light of this definition within 10 days of the changes taking effect. The updated criteria will be approved by the Coordination Center,” the ministry’s website states.
At the same time, it is noted that the review of the criteria does not entail an automatic review of the status of all enterprises, and enterprises previously recognized as critical based on criteria that will not be changed as a result of the review will retain their status as critically important. The statement asserts that such enterprises constitute the “overwhelming majority.”
It is also noted that the decision to designate enterprises as critically important remains within the purview of authorized state bodies, and the Coordination Center’s proposals are subject to review by central executive authorities and regional military administrations.
It is reported that the Coordination Center for Mobilization is a temporary consultative and advisory body of the Cabinet of Ministers, whose work will involve representatives of government agencies responsible for the economy, defense, security, humanitarian policy, and the operation of critical infrastructure; it will be co-chaired by the Deputy
Minister of Economy and Environment and the Deputy Minister of Defense. The center’s tasks include, in particular, reviewing requests from government agencies to designate enterprises as critically important, providing recommendations on revoking such status if law enforcement agencies provide grounds for doing so, and approving increases in procurement quotas exceeding 50%. The timeframe for reviewing requests from government agencies is limited to one month.
The Ministry of Economy confirmed that the government has reduced the maximum reservation limits for enterprises in the fuel and energy and defense-industrial sectors to 95% of employees subject to military service, and that citizens granted deferments for other reasons—such as parents of large families, guardians, and others—will be included in the quota when calculating the maximum percentage of reserved personnel. It was also stated that the reduction in the maximum limits should not apply to critically important personnel, who must be reserved in full, but the enterprise’s director will independently determine whom to reserve within the limit.
As previously reported, on Friday, Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskyi stated that the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine had finalized changes to the reservation system—an enterprise’s criticality will be separated from its economic indicators, sectoral and regional criteria for criticality will be updated, and enterprises will be audited for abuse.
The second change is that the maximum reservation rate—particularly for the energy sector and the defense industry—will no longer be 100%. “Unconditional full reservations are unfair to those who serve and open the door to abuse. There were companies created specifically for the reservation system, and it became a business,” the prime minister noted, adding that the government will not ease restrictions on those who manufacture weapons or maintain critical infrastructure, and if more reservations are needed to ensure uninterrupted operations, the company will be able to submit a substantiated request to the Coordination Center.
The third change is that the Ministry of Defense is tightening penalties for evading military service; the fourth is the development of a mechanism for 100% workforce reservation, contingent upon fulfilling mobilization obligations: a company will be able to fully reserve its employees if it regularly and voluntarily enlists some of them into military service.
COMPANY, defense industry, ENERGY SECTOR, mobilization, workforce reservation
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