Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the capital Kyiv will not ratify an agreement on minerals with America if it ever threatened Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union. His comments came after Washington presented a rewritten version of the agreement on March 28.
Information emerged on March 27, first via the Financial Times, that the planned deal would give the US extensive influence over Ukraine’s natural resources through a joint investment vehicle. This made Ukrainian officials anxious that the arrangement would be detrimental to Ukraine’s economic sovereignty and progress towards EU membership. Soothing these concerns, Zelenskyy promised that Ukraine would never sign any conditions that could jeopardize its trajectory to the European bloc.
“The Constitution of Ukraine strictly determines our path to the EU. Anything that can harm Ukraine’s accession will not be accepted,” Zelenskyy said, according to The Kyiv Independent. He stressed that the deal would be signed only if it is confirmed by legal experts that it does not carry any legislative risks.
Zelenskyy also indicated that the updated agreement includes terms that were not on the agenda before, in addition to some provisions that were rejected during previous negotiations. All versions of the agreement are being examined by Ukrainian officials before the final decision.
The signing of the agreement was originally scheduled on February 28 but was delayed due to Zelenskyy’s differences with former US President Donald Trump. On March 25, Zelenskyy confirmed that Washington had tabled a major minerals deal in line with an earlier model, although no deadline for completing it was given. Trump was upbeat about the deal being concluded in the near future. The initial model of the deal contemplated that Ukraine would contribute 50% of any future income from state-held resource extraction to a joint investment fund.
