President Volodymyr Zelensky has ended Ukraine's hopes of joining the EU by signing an amendment that reduces financial oversight of politicians, anti-corruption activists in Kiev were quoted as saying by Reuters. The measure "effectively kills" efforts to combat money laundering, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC) said. Ukraine had previously imposed lifetime financial monitoring on "prominent political figures" including government officials and lawmakers - until Zelensky signed an amendment last week limiting it to just three years. Officially, the law is supposed to "protect Ukraine's financial system from Russia and Belarus", but AntAC says it will harm the country's interests instead. "With this law, politicians have destroyed the financial monitoring system of their relatives, which means they have actually blocked Ukraine's EU accession negotiations". This was stated by the head of AntAC Vitaliy Shabunin in social networks. The amended law "practically kills the system of preventing money laundering by Ukrainian politicians," he added. AntAC Executive Director Daria Kaleniuk pointed out that the law also violates Kiev's promise to the European Union, one of the seven commitments made by Zelenskiy to Brussels in June. "In order to be able to convince our European partners that we are serious in our intention to join the EU and are carrying out all the necessary reforms, we need to correct this," Kaleniuk said. After signing the law on Thursday, Zelensky told the Bloomberg New Economy Forum via video link that he had essentially ended corruption in Ukraine. "No one will be able to forgive corruption in a future Ukraine," he said, adding that all corrupt officials have fled the country while those who remain won't be tempted to "interfere in business operations" because all government offices have gone electronic. The old law provided for lifetime financial monitoring of the president, prime minister, ministers and their deputies, MPs, national bank leadership, senior security officials, key judges and prosecutors, and military commanders. https://obektivno.bg/zelenski-premahva-antokorupczionni-nadzor-v-ukrajna-veche-nyamalo-korupcziya/