The draft State Budget-2025, finalized by the government, received the support of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Budget

The Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine reviewed the draft law on the State Budget of Ukraine for 2025, as finalized by the government, and recommended that the parliament adopt it during the second reading.

About this on Monday, November 18, reported People’s Deputy from “Servant of the People” Taras Melnychuk.

“The Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, in accordance with a special procedure, reviewed the draft law on the State Budget of Ukraine for 2025 (reg. No. 12000 dated 14.09.2024) finalized by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and recommended that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopt it in the second reading and in general” — wrote Melnychuk.

As reported people’s deputy from “Golos” Yaroslav Zheleznyak, 24 members of the committee voted “for”, three people’s deputies abstained, one more was against.

“Next is the meeting of the Council this week, where the final vote in the second and as a whole for the law should take place. During the committee, only two amendments were supported: not to transfer hospitals to treasury service and remove the rule about the possibility for parties to deposit funds for the OVDP”, – Zheleznyak wrote.

Roksolana Pidlasa, head of the budget committee, explained, which changes the deputies made to the project:

1. 2 billion dollars (90 billion UAH) of loan funds will go to the state budget from Great Britain purely to cover military expenses, namely the purchase of weapons. They are reflected in the special fund of external borrowings and expenditures of the Ministry of Defense.
2. They left 4% of personal income tax (except for the military) in communities (that is, in general, it will be 64% for communities) for calculations for communal services and energy carriers, accordingly, the subvention to regional budgets to cover the difference in tariffs for 12.2 billion UAH is canceled.
3. Frontline communities were allowed not to transfer the reverse to the state budget (a total of UAH 593 million).
4. +128 million for Ukrzaliznytsia to co-finance the European railway infrastructure development project (in fact, the railway track). Co-financing is a mandatory condition for providing European funds.
5. + UAH 277.1 million to the National Academy of Sciences, in particular for research in the military sphere.
6. The possibility for political parties to buy military OVDP bonds was excluded (Article 49 of the budget).
7. Obligations for hospitals to keep money in accounts in the treasury were excluded (clause 28 of the final provisions).

On November 8, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the draft state budget for 2025 for the second reading in the Verkhovna Rada. As noted by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, although certain changes have been made, the main priority of the state budget for next year remains unchanged — defense, strengthening of defense capabilities and security of Ukraine.

“For these needs, we propose to allocate 2 trillion 225 billion UAH. All the funds of Ukrainian taxpayers will go exclusively to support the Security and Defense Forces, to manufacture and purchase new weapons, drones and equipment”, – announced the head of the government.

Also, according to Shmyhal, the social sphere, education and medicine remain among the priorities of the budget. He added that for the second reading, the government recommended to the Council to increase budget expenditures by 50 billion hryvnias.

As a reminder, on October 1, the parliament adopted the draft State Budget of Ukraine for 2025 as a basis. Earlier, the Rada canceled the salary increase for Ukrainian prosecutors planned in the 2025 budget.