Starting December 1, Ukrainians will lose their reservations: who will be affected?

Starting December 1, Ukrainians will lose their reservation: who will be affected

Beginning December 1, Ukraine will implement specific changes regarding reservations. According to people's deputy and member of the Committee on Economic Development, Bohdan Kytak, the attachment to the Cabinet of Ministers' resolution №1332 states that some workers in critical enterprises will lose their reservation from mobilization.

Who will lose their reservation from mobilization

He noted that the government resolution does not contain many changes, however, in the attachment, there is clause 12, which stipulates that employees of enterprises hired after May 18, 2024, will "partially lose the ability to be reserved."

"Imagine that as of May 18, your enterprise has 100 employees, and you can reserve 50%. After May 18, you opened an additional branch or expanded your capabilities, and now you have 200 employees. But according to this, you can only reserve those employees who were present as of May 18," Kytak explained to Focus.

The people's deputy currently finds it difficult to estimate how many people will lose their reservations due to the new resolution. Specifically, in Ukraine, the number of reserved individuals increased from 900,000 as of May 18 to about 1.5 million. However, the resolution has certain exceptions; it applies to representations of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, supervisory boards, and similar entities. As a result, the new restrictions will not affect them.

Bohdan Kytak emphasized that commissions will continue to operate in Ukraine to determine and verify enterprises' compliance with the criteria that define criticality. In particular, the commissions will conduct monthly monitoring to ascertain whether taxes are being paid. Consequently, this will reduce corruption risks.

Corruption risks and schemes: what the lawyer says

Lawyer and partner at the law firm "Kravets and Partners," Rostyslav Kravets noted in a conversation with Focus that instances of corruption will be minimal. He believes that violations related to reservations are isolated cases across the country.

"If everything happens within the legal framework, there will be no corruption. The only issue is that the new procedure establishes certain changes for local authorities, local self-government bodies, and communal enterprises regarding the reservation of their representatives. Here, of course, there could be corruption risks when it is unclear what parameters and how, without clear and transparent norms, permissions will be established for classifying an enterprise as critical. This is indeed a risk," Kravets said.

When asked if a person could be hired "retroactively," the lawyer noted that this is currently impossible.

Changes in reservations from December 1: new rules

The First Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Economy, Yulia Svyrydenko reported that starting December 1, Ukrainian workers can be reserved through "Diia." According to her, the Cabinet has improved resolution 76 on reservations, specifically:

• reservations will continue in the future;
• the approach to reservations has been changed to eliminate identified problems — abuses by enterprises (reducing salaries after obtaining critical status, seeking ways to increase reserved numbers through overtime). Therefore, industry and regional criteria for criticality will be coordinated with the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Economy;
• the algorithm for recognizing an enterprise as critical remains unchanged, but it must meet two of eight defined criteria;
• the average salary at the enterprise must be at least 20,000 hryvnias, and the salary of the reserved employee must be at least 2.5 minimum wages;
• the enterprise must not have tax payment arrears;
• quarterly monitoring will occur to ensure compliance with established salary requirements, tax payment levels, and the number of military obligations;
• the criticality of the enterprise will be annulled if the monitoring yields a negative result.