The mineral deal with the US included not only new but also inactive licenses
The intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and the United States on the creation of the American-Ukrainian Investment Fund for Reconstruction will include not only new but also inactive licenses. This, as People's Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak from Holos pointed out, is stated in the text of the agreement submitted for ratification to the parliament on May 1.
He emphasized that the MPs are being asked to ratify the agreement without the main document – the Limited Partnership Agreement, which will specify the main thing – "how the mechanism actually works, who has what rights, where the fund is registered, where and how much money goes."
According to him, this second agreement has already been agreed upon "in substance and form" but has not yet been made public.
Zheleznyak emphasized that it is important to see the entire package of documents at once, because even the first agreement does not fully correspond to the previous statements of officials.
First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko emphasized that the fund would be filled with revenues exclusively from NEW licenses, but this is not entirely true.
The annex to the agreement states that "agreed income" in the context of the establishment of the fund means 50% of all royalties (rental payments), license fees and amounts payable under production sharing agreements received by any government agency from or in connection with:
→ issuance of new licenses on the effective date of the limited partnership agreement;
→ exploitation of previously issued but unused licenses.
"And this is literally one example of the discrepancy between the declared and the real. I'm not saying that there is a betrayal or a victory. It's just somehow strange to vote for a "cat in a bag", especially since ours already have the second text. Only for some reason they don't show it officially," Zheleznyak wrote.
- In late February, Ukraine and the United States were set to sign a framework agreement on joint mining in Ukraine. The deal fell apart after a row in the Oval Office during President Zelensky’s visit to the United States.
- In a second attempt, the agreement was signed on April 30, although its text had changed significantly compared to the first version.
