Ukraine and the OECD on Wednesday signed a four-year partnership aimed at eventually promoting Kiev's membership in the developed country organisation. The partnership was formalized Wednesday by the Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Mathias Cormann and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, who was attending a ministerial meeting of the institution in Paris by videoconference. The agreement, described as a "country programme", "will underpin Ukraine's reform, recovery and reconstruction agenda," the OECD said in a statement, and it "will help the country to progress towards the accession to the OECD and the European Union to which it aspires".
Kiev has been engaged in an accession dialogue with the OECD since October 2022, a very preliminary process on the way to full membership of the institution that brings together 38 developed countries, and imposes strict criteria on tax transparency, corruption or opening up the economy.
This "country program" will focus on "strengthening institutions and governance, continuing the fight against corruption, attracting private sector investment, and laying the foundations necessary to ensure the sustainable well-being of the population," Mathias Cormann said Wednesday. It "will also facilitate its accession to the EU," continued the head of the OECD, at a time when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asks the Union that accession negotiations start this year, despite the ongoing conflict.
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The OECD, heir to the organization founded to manage American and Canadian aid to Europe at the end of the Second World War, aims at international cooperation and the promotion of public policies favorable to prosperity in a framework of market economy, education, fight against tax evasion, etc.