On Tuesday, the EU Council officially decided to provide Ukraine with an urgent additional macro-financial assistance (MFA) in the amount of 5 billion euros, the press service of the European Council reports.
“On September 9, EU finance ministers agreed on a statement in support of this additional €5 billion assistance to Ukraine at an informal meeting of the Ecofin Council in Prague. Today, this additional assistance was formally accepted after the necessary formal steps were completed in just 11 days,” he said. the message says.
It clarifies that this financial assistance is in addition to other European Union support to Ukraine already provided in the humanitarian, customs, defense and development sectors.
The WHO Regional Office for Europe and the European Commission (EC) have confirmed their joint efforts to prevent monkeypox, which threatens to become endemic in Europe, according to a communiqué published in Brussels on Tuesday.
“We are witnessing an unprecedented spread of monkeypox orthopoxvirus in our region and around the world,” said Hans Kluge, Director of the WHO European Office, and Stella Kyriakidis, EC Health Member, in a joint statement on the occasion of the 72nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe.
“This zoonotic virus, previously associated with only limited human-to-human spread in non-endemic countries, is now a global cross-border public health threat in Europe and an international public health emergency,” the document emphasizes.
The statement said that since the beginning of May 2022, more than 23,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the WHO European Region, of which more than 18,000 occur in the EU and the European Economic Area.
“The coordinated and collaborative response efforts of our European national and regional health agencies and authorities have been very important and we are now seeing a decline in cases in recent weeks. We believe the way to prevent the disease from becoming endemic in our region is to first fight against outbreaks and then working towards sustainable elimination of monkeypox in Europe, which means no sustained human-to-human transmission,” Kluge and Kyriakidis explain.
They pledged that the European Commission and WHO will continue to work together in consultation with Member States to “determine joint timelines, criteria and indicators to prevent the disease from becoming endemic in Europe.”
2,740 farmers from Ukraine have already applied for participation in the program financed by the budgetary support of the European Union through the State Agrarian Register (SAR), according to the website of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food on Friday.
Farmers with a land bank of 1 to 120 hectares (with payment of up to 3.1 thousand UAH/ha), and owners of 3 to 100 cows (with payment of up to 5, 3 thousand UAH/head).
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, a total of 2,299 applications were submitted for payments in the first direction, and 437 in the second.
The agency recalled that the acceptance of applications for assistance in the two above areas will last until November 15, 2022.
At the same time, only agricultural producers registered in the GAR and meeting its criteria can be participants in the program. Currently, 11,000 users have already registered with the GAR, who can access information about existing state support programs in real time and apply for it online.
As reported, GAR is an automated electronic system available to all agricultural producers, regardless of the form of management. With the help of the registry, it is planned to provide public services, simplify access to bank financing and loan guarantee programs, as well as introduce targeted government support programs and evaluate their effectiveness.
The project is being implemented in coordination with the State Geocadastre, the Ministry of Justice and with the assistance of the World Bank and EU project “Support for transparent land management in Ukraine”, as well as the USAID Agricultural and Rural Development Program.
In the last three years, the EU has been supporting the introduction of GAR in Ukraine. With technical and financial assistance from the EU, the government has developed the software and carried out two pilot implementations ahead of a nationwide launch in August 2022.
The EU decision to suspend the facilitated visa agreement with Russia has taken effect and will be applied from September 12, the Official Journal of the European Union said.
“The application of the Agreement between the European Community and the Russian Federation on the facilitation of the issuance of visas to the citizens of the European Union and the Russian Federation is suspended in whole as regards citizens of the Russian Federation, as from 12 September 2022,” it said.
The document noted that the decision would take effect on the day of adoption, i.e. Friday. However, it will be applied from Monday, considering that the EU must notify the other party to the agreement, Russia, within 48 hours since the decision is approved.
The Government of Ukraine will send a letter to all tax authorities and governments of the EU countries with a request to apply the “covid precedent”, when many people were forced to leave their countries of tax residence due to the cancellation of flights, and the “tax rule” was not applied to them. residency 180 days”.
This decision was made by the Economic Headquarters under the Ministry of Economy at a meeting on Thursday, its member Mikhail Kukhar said on Facebook.
According to him, the letter will be signed by First Deputy Prime Minister – Economy Minister Yulia Sviridenko, who heads the Economic Staff and approved such a proposal.
Kukhar added that changes are also being prepared to the relevant instructions of the National Bank and the State Tax Service to allow Ukrainian individual entrepreneurs to open accounts in foreign banks.
As previously reported, the European Business Association called on the government to resolve the issue of tax residence of Ukrainian citizens abroad, since staying outside the country for more than 183 days, they can be recognized as residents of the host country and there will be a risk of double taxation.
According to the UN, at present, most of the Ukrainian refugees to Europe received the status of temporary protection in Poland – 1 million 274.1 thousand, Germany – 670 thousand, the Czech Republic – 413 thousand, Italy – 150.3 thousand, Spain – 133.8 thousand, Bulgaria – 129.4 thousand, France – 96.5 thousand, Slovakia – 86.8 thousand and Austria – 78.2 thousand.
Most of them left Ukraine at the end of February and March.
The international research company Corteva Agriscience has established export supply chains for corn seeds from Ukraine to the EU, and in the context of the Russian military invasion plans to increase its exports to European countries by 16 times by the end of the year compared to last year.
According to a press release from the company, as of early August, it has already shipped 3,000 tonnes of corn seeds grown at its seed complex in Poltava region to the European Union.
The company clarified that, for security reasons, it suspended the operation of the seed plant immediately after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but at the initiative of the employees themselves, after some time, resumed the operation of the enterprise. The launch of its work made it possible to provide Ukrainian farmers with seed material that is critical for the sowing campaign.
Corteva, in the context of Russian aggression, also for security reasons, refused to supply seeds of Ukrainian production by land to the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia, but expanded logistics to the EU as much as possible.
“On the production lines of the Corteva plant in Ukraine, high standards of seed production have been introduced, which allow us to produce goods that meet all the quality criteria adopted in the EU. Seeds are controlled by many indicators at all stages of production – from field to bag, and meet the maximum requirements of both Ukrainian, and foreign farmers choosing Corteva genetics,” the company said.
Earlier, in April, the company decided to leave the Russian market due to the military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
Corteva Agriscience is a global agricultural company. It offers farmers comprehensive solutions to maximize yields and profitability. It has more than 150 research facilities and more than 65 active ingredients in the portfolio.
