{"id":1354919,"date":"2026-02-07T10:56:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T08:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/sepa-with-the-smell-of-the-housing-office-how-the-government-seeks-to-restore-soviet-traditions\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T10:56:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T08:56:59","slug":"sepa-with-the-smell-of-the-housing-office-how-the-government-seeks-to-restore-soviet-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/sepa-with-the-smell-of-the-housing-office-how-the-government-seeks-to-restore-soviet-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"SEPA with the smell of the Housing Office: how the government seeks to restore Soviet traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: Author’s Facebook<\/a> page<\/em><\/p>\n

SEPA with the smell of the Housing Office. How the Cabinet wanted to turn a bank into a passport office, and a citizen into a suspect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ukraine is a unique country. Here, the state may not build normal institutions for years, but it is able to quickly build registers, certificates, and procedures in the style of \u201cprove that you are not a camel,\u201d as it was in the USSR. This is reminiscent of a person who cannot repair an apartment with a leaking roof, but buys an expensive Swiss watch to \u201clook like Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Cabinet of Ministers brought us this Swiss watch called SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area). The idea is wonderful, necessary and long overdue. But along with the watch, the government tried to imperceptibly slip an old Soviet nut into our pocket: the presumption of client guilt. We are talking about government bill No. 14327 (registered on 12\/23\/2025), which was presented under the guise of \u201cfulfilling EU requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early February 2026, the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada slowed down this document, sending it for revision due to \u201cdraconian norms\u201d. But the story is not over \u2013 it just went on a break. Because \u201cwithdrawn from consideration\u201d in parliamentary terms means: let\u2019s rewrite it in other words and try again. And if society doesn\u2019t fix the red lines now, tomorrow they will bring us the same rink, only with a more beautiful cover.<\/p>\n

Why did this \u201ctechnical European integration\u201d document cause such an explosion? Because society read not the headline about SEPA, but the fine print about a new serf system in banking: the bank as a checkpoint into normal life, and the client as a suspect who must prove his own \u201cnormality\u201d with pieces of paper.<\/p>\n\t\t