Scandal erupts over Ukraine's parliament move to block key EU integration bills

A parliamentary committee on Aug. 21 defended its earlier decision to block five bills intended to strengthen the country's fight against corruption.

The bills are requirements of the European Union, both to receive an estimated 2.1 billion euros ($2.45 billion) at the end of 2026, as well as to advance Kyiv's EU accession talks.

The reforms seek to expand anti-corruption agencies' authority, reform the Prosecutor General's Office and the State Investigation Bureau, and repeal legislation that impedes corruption cases.

The Ukrainian parliament's law enforcement committee on Aug. 19 blocked the bills by not including them in the agenda of parliament's current session, which is scheduled to end in January.

To become valid, the decision has to be approved by Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of the Verkhovna Rada.

The move has sparked outrage and drawn sharp criticism from pro-reform lawmakers and anti-corruption activists. They argued that the decision was a major blow to both Ukraine's EU integration and anti-corruption reforms.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, chair of the European integration committee, told the Kyiv Independent that she was "absolutely appalled by this decision of the law enforcement committee."

"This is a revanchist attempt to reverse some of the most important reforms which are also interim benchmarks for (the EU's) Fundamentals Cluster," said Klympush-Tsintsadze, who represents ex-President Petro Poroshenko's European Solidarity party.

Why were the bills blocked?

The decision to block the bills triggered a scandal because their substance was not even considered by the law enforcement committee.

The committee said in a statement on Aug. 21 that it had not "rejected" the bills but rather recommended not including them in the session's agenda. The statement was made in response to requests by the Kyiv Independent and other media outlets.

The committee also said that Vsevolod Chentsov, deputy prime minister for European integration, and parliament's European integration committee had not formally designated the bills as "European integration legislation."

Olha Savchenko, a committee member from President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People party, said at the Aug. 19 committee meeting that, instead of considering these bills, parliament should wait for alternative versions of the reforms from the Cabinet of Ministers.

The Cabinet has so far failed to submit any of the alternative bills.

Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a lawmaker from the liberal Holos party and a co-sponsor of the bills, told the Kyiv Independent that he deems the decision to block the bills to be illegal because it violates parliament's procedure.

Bills can be removed from the agenda only if they have lost relevance, but this is obviously not the case here, Zheleznyak said.

The committee has not responded to a request for comment on the accusation.

Zheleznyak also said that he would submit the bills again if parliament made a final decision on removing them from the agenda.

"These are bills that my colleagues and I submitted to strengthen the fight against corruption in the country," Zheleznyak wrote on Telegram. "These bills bring us closer to the EU. And around 2 billion euros in aid by the end of the year is tied to the passage of these bills."

The bills were co-sponsored by Zheleznyak, Anastasia Radina, head of parliament's anti-corruption committee, and other lawmakers.

They are part of a package of changes expected to be done by the end of 2026. Full completion of the reforms in that package would lead to Ukraine receiving 2.1 billion euros from the EU.

All five reforms fall under the EU's Ukraine Plan and its interim benchmarks on the rule of law.

For the EU to ever be allowed to consider any membership reforms as successfully completed by Kyiv, these interim benchmarks first need to be completely fulfilled.

Which reforms were blocked?

One of the bills seeks to explicitly expand the National Anti-Corruption Bureau's (NABU) jurisdiction to officials of the President's Office and the head of the State Investigation Bureau.

There are loopholes allowing the bureau to investigate officials of the President's Office in some cases involving high monetary sums or officials from other institutions. However, the lack of direct jurisdiction still impedes the NABU's ability to investigate the President's Office.

According to the EU's requirements, Ukraine must expand "the jurisdiction of NABU and SAPO (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office) to cover all high-risk positions."

The committee claimed that the bill expanding the bureau's jurisdiction "duplicates" existing legislation.

But anti-corruption activists interpreted the committee's move as an effort to obstruct its ongoing investigations.

On the same day as the committee meeting, the NABU raided the home of Zelensky's then Deputy Chief of Staff, Iryna Mudra. She was later charged in a large-scale money laundering and corporate raiding case.

Another bill seeks to select the prosecutor general in a transparent contest with the participation of international experts.

According to the EU reform roadmap, Ukraine should also "conduct a comprehensive review of the selection and dismissal procedure of the prosecutor general, with a view to aligning it with European best practice." The plan also envisages reinstating transparent contests for other top prosecutor jobs.

However, the committee claimed that the bill on the prosecutor general "may be regarded as inconsistent with the Constitution."

Radina, a co-author of the bill, denied the allegation.

The package also includes a bill that would introduce a similar transparent contest for the State Investigation Bureau with the participation of international experts. According to the EU requirements, Ukraine should reform the bureau "in line with best European practices."

The committee claimed that the European Union Advisory Mission did not support the bill on the State Investigation Bureau.

The Kyiv Independent has requested the experts' conclusion from the committee, but has not received it so far.

Radina told the Kyiv Independent she had not seen the conclusion. But even if it is true, the experts' opinion does not have to coincide with the EU's official position, she added.

Zelensky pledged in January to submit to parliament an alternative bill to reform the bureau by the end of the month. So far, he has failed to do so.

Another bill concerns canceling the controversial 2017 amendments that dealt a major blow to corruption cases by severely limiting the terms of investigations and setting strict deadlines for sending cases to trial. Some of the amendments were repealed in 2023, but the main ones remain.

The committee claimed that the bill to cancel the amendments would contradict decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights.

There is also a bill that seeks to suspend the statute of limitations in top-level corruption cases when a defendant is mobilized. The legislation aims to ensure that mobilization is not used as a way to avoid prosecution.

The committee claimed that the bill suspending the statute of limitations would violate the "principle of legal certainty" required by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Ukraine's reform agenda is at a standstill

The governing party's inability or unwillingness to pass reforms has been notable for almost a year.

Ukraine failed to complete 11 reforms in the last three months of 2025, which were also required in order to unlock European funds.

That prompted the bloc's Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos to get more directly involved, drawing up an action plan in tandem with Taras Kachka, then Ukraine's deputy prime minister for EU integration. The plan, adopted in December, includes 10 urgently needed reforms to be completed by the end of 2026.

To date, Kyiv has yet to complete a single one of the ten items required by the Kachka-Kos plan.

One reform passed by the parliament in June, on integrity declarations for judges, might have even dismantled rules rather than strengthened them.

Judicial watchdog Dejure said that "instead of reviving a weak but important mechanism for vetting judges' integrity, lawmakers have chosen to dismantle it altogether," the watchdog added.

And the man whose name features on the plan, Kachka, has been demoted by Zelensky and sent back to Brussels, but as Ukraine's ambassador to the EU.

In June, the EU made one last move to maintain the positive pressure to reform by ensuring the Kachka-Kos plan's reform list is explicitly tied to the disbursement of funds.

After that, the situation as it stands brings to mind the idiom that "you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink." And, in the minds of national EU leaders, nor should the bloc have to.

"An independent judiciary, solid democratic institutions, bodies effectively able to fight corruption, these are not just reforms designed to please Brussels," said Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot at a press conference in Kyiv on Aug. 18, the day before the law enforcement committee held its meeting.

These reforms are "designed to protect citizens, reinforce trust, and make your country more resilient," Prevot said.