Stronger together: EU4PFM meets its partners in Vilnius to discuss the progress of project implementation and the needs for further support agenda
The EU4PFM Project together with the Central Project Management Agency gathered the partners from the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, the State Customs Service of Ukraine, the State Tax Service of Ukraine, the European Delegation to Ukraine, and representatives of other international projects working in PFM domain.
This is the first partner meeting in person since the war started.
Director of Central Project Management Agency Lidija Kašubienė delivered the welcome address and stressed the importance of this special occasion. “This is a special occasion to finally meet in person after the outbreak of the war against Ukraine. The invasion of the russian army in Ukraine has changed the world over the night. From day one of this war, our hearts, minds, and hands of help are with Ukrainians”, Lidija Kašubienė said.
In the opening speech, Xavier Camus, Head of Operations Section 1 “Good Governance and Democratization” of the European Delegation to Ukraine paid tribute to the Ukrainian defenders, Ukrainian resilience and expressed the EU’s commitment to further reformation processes in Ukraine. Xavier Camus mentioned that this visit is a possibility to share mutual experiences and expectations on the EU accession process. «Ukraine received Candidate status in June that opens perspectives for the reforms that the EU4PFM Programme supports. Therewith, the reconstruction process of Ukraine has to be aligned with further reforms to pay the pass to the EU membership», Xavier Camus noted.
EU4PFM Team Leader Jurgita Domeikiene welcomed participants and provided them with a glimpse of the expectations of the conference. «The breakout of the war in Ukraine has dimmed prospects for growth and increased uncertainty, but despite of this we are not only continuing earlier started activities, but launching new ones, and even managing to organize offline meetings. Yes, sometimes it could seem unbelievable, but each day Ukrainian people do unbelievable things and show immense courage – they are a true inspiration for all of us», added Jurgita Domeikiene.
«The war put many things on hold but we clearly understand that PFM reform is relevant. We began to work on Component 1 of the project in public sector accounting and public internal financial control. Among other priorities are Ukraine‘s recovery plan and European integration. So there are several new issues we would like to work on in this direction. This is, first of all, the management of external financial aid, integration into the budget process, and ensurance of budget transparency. We hope that based on the result of this visit we will be able to proceed with the procurement of the development of a new IT system for budget planning, execution, and monitoring», Denys Uliutin, First Deputy Finance Minister of Ukraine summed up.
This visit is scheduled for three days.
