The Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday failed to pass a vote on creating an advisory group of experts (AGE) to select candidates for six vacant seats on the Accounting Chamber, one of the conditions for Ukraine's funding from the European Union under the Ukraine Support Loan (its macro-financial component), with an August 2026 deadline.
Resolution No. 14012 received 192 votes, short of the required minimum of 226, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.
Roksolana Pidlasa, head of parliament's budget committee, noted that the Accounting Chamber has been operating with a reduced membership for almost two and a half years. She said forming the group and filling out the Accounting Chamber's membership is a condition not only for EU funding, but also a structural benchmark under the IMF's Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program, to be met by December 2026.
"Money is at stake behind these decisions — money we use to finance budget expenditures, including military spending, but also teachers' and medical workers' salaries and social support. That's why it's critical for us to complete both steps on time," Pidlasa said.
The advisory group of experts, with a majority of voting members, was to include international specialists nominated by the European Union and the United Kingdom: Igors Ludborzs (Latvia), a member of the European Court of Auditors and a certified auditor since 1994; Pascal Munier (France), a senior auditor at France's Court of Audit with 24 years of auditing experience; and Lee Summerfield (United Kingdom), a director at the UK's National Audit Office with 25 years of experience auditing government programs, including in defense.
"The process from here will look like this: within a week of the Rada's vote, the acceptance of applications from candidates will begin and will run for 30 days. The advisory group of experts will then conduct testing and interviews and recommend at least two candidates for each position. The final decision rests with the Verkhovna Rada, which will appoint new Accounting Chamber members from among the recommended candidates," Pidlasa explained.
To become an Accounting Chamber member, a candidate must be a Ukrainian citizen at least 30 years old, fluent in Ukrainian and English or French, hold at least a master's degree, have at least seven years of overall work experience including at least five years in state audit/control, economics, finance or law, and have an impeccable business reputation.
As previously reported, the Verkhovna Rada also failed earlier Tuesday to pass a bill scrapping the VAT exemption for postal shipments up to EUR 150, another structural benchmark under the IMF program. That bill received 194 votes.
