Podlasie: the Verkhovna Rada committee made final amendments and approved the state budget project for 2025

The budget committee of the Verkhovna Rada approved the draft state budget 2025 for the second reading and made final amendments to the document, the head of the specialized committee, a member of parliament from the Servant of the People faction, Roksolana Pidlas, reported on her Facebook page.

According to her, the budget committee of the Verkhovna Rada proposes the following changes to the draft law:

• 2 billion dollars (90 billion hryvnias) of loan funds from Great Britain to be directed to the state budget to cover military expenses, namely the purchase of weapons;
• left 4% of personal income tax (except for the military) in communities (i.e., in general, it will be 64% for communities) for payments for communal services and energy carriers, respectively, cancel the subvention to regional budgets to cover the difference in tariffs for 12.2 billion hryvnias;
• allowed front-line communities not to transfer the reverse to the state budget (a total of 593 million hryvnias);
• send 128 million hryvnias to Ukrzaliznytsia for co-financing of the European railway infrastructure development project (in fact, the railway track). Co-financing is a mandatory condition for providing European funds, the deputy noted;
• provide 277.1 million hryvnias to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in particular for research in the military sphere;
• ruled out the possibility for political parties to buy military OVDP bonds;
• exclude the obligation of hospitals to keep money on accounts in the Treasury.

Next, the draft law must be adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in the second reading.

On November 8, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the project of the 2025 state budget. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal noted that “despite certain changes in the draft state budget, the priority remained unchanged – defense, defense capability and security of Ukraine. The government proposed to allocate 2 trillion 225 billion hryvnias for these needs.”

Earlier, on October 31, the Verkhovna Rada approved the conclusions and proposals of people’s deputies to the draft law on the state budget for 2025. 247 deputies supported the budget in the first reading.

On September 3, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in the first reading draft law No. 11417 on amendments to the budget for 2024, which increased defense spending by about 500 billion hryvnias.