Ukraine's mobilization bill: business asks parliament to refine legislation, not to paralyze economy

The European Business Association’ statement says this.

They noted that the draft law in this version "cannot be adopted, but must be revised consciously once again in order not to stop the country's work and, in particular, its economy.”

The EBA pointed out the need to remove the provision on remote delivery of summonses from the document. The business is also concerned about the deployment of mobile posts of the Territorial Centers for Recruitment and Social Support (TCR) in front of checkpoints across the state border of Ukraine. Document checks at these posts lead to the formation of additional queues at the state border, panic among company employees authorized to carry out the relevant transportation, the EBA noted.

"After all, even if a driver is currently booked, before rebooking, an employee may be off the reservation for several days/weeks. Accordingly, they have to come to the TCR to update the information, and, according to the experience of the business, such employees are often mobilized without waiting for the decision to extend the reservation. Therefore, this situation at the borders leads to, on the one hand, more complicated logistics (and this is a difficult time), on the other hand, workers have many questions and sometimes panic - even, as already mentioned, among workers authorized to cross the border," the statement says.

This can lead to a loss of confidence from international customers, termination of contracts, loss of orders, dismissal of employees, stoppage of production activities of companies in general, as well as a decrease in state budget revenues in terms of taxes and customs payments, the EBA said.

They also emphasized the need to resolve the issue of employee booking.

"For the proper functioning of the economy in the country, it is important to additionally provide for the reservation of employees who do not belong to critical enterprises, but at the same time actively work and pay taxes to the budget of Ukraine," the EBA summarized.

• In late January, the government submitted an updated draft law on mobilization to the Ukrainian parliament.
• On February 5, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy submitted to the parliament bills to extend general mobilization and martial law for another 90 days.