The European Commission called on Ukraine to urgently return to collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule notedc this at the hearings of the Ukrainian issue at the request of European Commission Vice President Catherine Ashton at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

"Regrettably, the overall reform process which is very important for Ukraine has significantly slowed. Much more should have been done in the past years," the European commissioner added.

According to Fule, pre-election politics also got in the way of the introduction of the IMF stand-by arrangement with Ukraine failing to meet the required conditions. The weakness of Ukraine's constitutional framework has also contributed to this.

"We look to the new leader of Ukraine to give a new impetus to its reform efforts. As a first priority in order to address the effects of the global financial crisis and ensure economic stability Ukraine has to get back on track with the IMF program without any delay. This is also a precondition for the disbursement of a possible EU macro-financial assistance," he reported.

As it was reported, the International Monetary Fund in the fall 2008 made a decision to disburse about 17 billion USD under the SBA. Since then, Ukraine has already received three trenches worth almost 11 billion USD. The first 4 billion USD tranche was given to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in November 2008. The IMF's second tranche - worth about 4 billion USD - was extended in May 2009.

The allocation of the fourth tranche, worth 3.4 billion USD, was scheduled for November 2009 following the third review of the IMF's collaboration program with Ukraine. The IMF mission ended its work in Kyiv late in October 2009, but did not issue a positive statement on the completion of the review. The IMF noted repeatedly that it expected a consolidated position from the Ukrainian authorities on the question of implementing anti-crisis measures.