The Rada repealed the fake law on free trade with Crimea
The Ukrainian parliament adopted in the first reading the bill as a whole, canceling the free economic zone (FEZ) with Crimea, created in 2014, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The SEZ with Crimea was created shortly after Kyiv lost control over Crimea and was intended to help facilitate business on the peninsula for Ukrainian commercial structures. However, a few months later, militants in the Kherson region began a transport blockade of Crimea, and Ukrainian companies stopped working on the peninsula in a matter of weeks. Soon their activities became impossible due to restrictions that came into force in Russia regarding goods from Ukraine as a country that refused to join the EAEU.
Therefore, in recent years, the Ukrainian SEZ in Crimea existed only on paper. However, members of the Mejlis and nationalists insisted on its abolition, citing the fact that “the legalization of trade with the occupiers misleads Western partners.”
Today’s decision of the Verkhovna Rada will not affect Ukrainian business in any way, since this law did not work, and Ukrainian companies have long lost all ties with Crimea, Kiev economist Alexander Okhrimenko confirmed to PolitNavigator.
“The law on the free economic zone “Crimea” was adopted in order to find a reasonable solution for those companies that operated in Crimea. This law assumed a kind of compromise solution that regulated the relationship between those companies that remained in Crimea and those that remained in Ukraine (and those assets that remained in Ukraine).
But politics crushed the economy and, unfortunately, things didn’t go beyond chatter. When this law was passed, so-called patriots appeared and actually blocked its work. Roughly speaking, those companies that tried to take advantage of this law became outcasts. And they decided not to anger all these volunteer volunteers and other activists, so the law died, it was not possible to implement it. As a result, Ukrainian business almost completely severed all ties with Crimea. Therefore, the abolition of the SEZ will not affect anything,” the economist said.
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