The President of Poland noted that he had always believed that countries aspiring to join the EU should have the prospect of joining - the doors of the EU should be open. Regarding the historical aspect of the bilateral relations between Ukraine and Poland, Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed content that during the conversation with Andrzej Duda they were very open in discussing the issues of historical memory.
At our level, we have agreed to go through all these issues, because we live side by side, we are neighbors and will be neighbors forever," the President of Ukraine said. He stressed that the issue of historical memory should be resolved by historians, professionals, not politicians. It is important. There should be no disputes between our countries in the future," Volodymyr Zelenskyy summed up. The President of Ukraine also noted that the Ukrainian-Polish economic forum held in Odesa today was opened by the presidents of the two countries and heads of relevant ministries.
About 50 Ukrainian and 30 Polish companies took part in the meeting. Much attention has been paid to infrastructure development. President of Ukraine. Many policy decisions are very much driven by individual member states and their often divergent national interests.
According to the European security strategy, which aimed to build a ring of well-governed states around the union, Ukraine had some sort of role to play. And that made it a safe bet for securing an EU-wide consensus. However, that was where the similarity of positions ended.
The Central and Eastern European states that joined the EU with the and enlargements, especially Poland, interpreted the lowest common denominator as an open-door policy. Ukraine was important for creating the Europe these idealistic activists wanted. They had a common history with Ukraine, and their populations included large communities of Ukrainian migrants.
They felt obliged—as Germany once felt with Poland—to do good and to lend a hand to help Ukraine weather painful reforms. This view was strongly supported by their societies. They advocated for the EU to give Ukraine a membership perspective and for the Association Agreement to be signed quickly as a step toward membership. These idealistic activists were later supported by a few old member states, like Sweden and Finland, and many in the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the newly formed European External Action Service.
Yet, the group split over the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, when Ukraine turned away from democratic reform. One faction, led by Poland and Lithuania, continued pushing for the agreement to be signed unconditionally. Their stance was driven by a fear of Russia, and, in particular, the fear that if Ukraine were not in the process of integrating with the EU, it could be more easily drawn into the Russia-led Eurasian Customs Union.
This faction felt obliged to press the rest of the EU to not give up on Ukraine despite negative developments on the ground. The other faction essentially, all of the idealistic activists but Poland and Lithuania still wanted to help Ukraine but needed to see signs of genuine interest in reform and shared values from Kyiv.
They supported signing the Association Agreement with Kyiv only after the Ukraine had met all the preconditions. Growing disappointment with Yanukovych after endless failed attempts to reach out to him turned even the last do-gooders away from idealism.
Talking about Ukraine became emotionally difficult, and these states did not see much sense in pushing the rest of the EU toward signing the agreement at any cost. They had other, more important issues to talk about with the heavyweights like Germany and France. Wasting political capital on Ukraine, even given the Russia factor, no longer seemed worth it.
A conservative group consisting mainly of older member states sat opposite the idealists. They were the closest it got to the lowest-common-denominator position. This group felt no historical connection to Ukraine and no obligation to help it reform. Some of these member states were simply geographically too far away from Ukraine. Any further Eastern enlargement was seen as a weakening of the union and a dilution of European integration. That meant Ukraine had to first do all the necessary hard work, and only then could it enjoy any possible benefits from proximity to the EU.
Their line has always been clear: Ukraine had to reform to prove it deserved to get closer to the EU. They opposed offering the carrot of membership to Ukraine, even in the immediate aftermath of the Orange Revolution when public opinion of Ukraine in those countries was relatively positive.
The furthest they agreed to go was to launch talks on the Association Agreement. Their tactical interest shifted. They put rapprochement with Ukraine—a country whose leadership acted against European values—on hold.
The positions of all member states are now coalescing around the vision of waiting for the situation on the ground to improve while keeping the option of signing the agreement open. They primarily seek not to promote European values in Ukraine but to ensure that the EU does not compromise its own values because of the geopolitical fears of certain EU member states. Some idealists are still trying to influence the situation on the ground, but even their hopes are bound to eventually fade.
Instead, it is primarily about EU enlargement or Russia. On both issues, the positions of EU member states are irreconcilable. Public administration reform is under way and key players are getting more competent, such as the office of the deputy prime minister responsible for European integration, but the government is still a long way from being able to deliver European integration related reforms efficiently.
Some authoritative politicians mainly view the EU as a declarative resource for the elite, which wishes to maintain Western support as manifested by its sanctions on Russia, engagement on the Minsk agreements, and economic assistance. Privately, many in Brussels share this skeptical outlook.
There is an emerging consensus that Ukraine is not liable to be quickly fixed by EU-sponsored reforms, and frustration is growing that the country is returning to business as usual and still has many features of a captured state. This will remain the pattern for the near future as the government almost entirely focuses on the elections in and is therefore inclined to ignore Western policy prescriptions. The coming period will see the EU consolidate the achievements in Ukraine from the last four years.
The hope is that the Association Agreement is a robust commitment that will keep Ukraine on the right path, despite potential turmoil created by the elections.
The EU-Ukraine relationship is also cemented by one key factor: a shared distrust of Russia. Thus, the EU is not so much withdrawing from Ukraine as it is taking a breath, while it hopes that the country muddles through the election. The agreement covers a range of sectors where reforms to approximate European standards are expected, including energy, transportation, environmental protection, industrial cooperation, social development and protection, equal rights, consumer protection, education, and cultural cooperation.
The AA also includes a political dialogue on reforms related to political association, democratic institutions, human rights, and convergence in the fields of foreign and security policy. The DCFTA sets out a new economic relationship with the EU by promising access to the EU single market, conditional on meeting EU regulatory standards on food safety, public procurement, competition policy, intellectual and property rights, and a host of other issues.
Thus far, the newly adopted autonomous trade measures have had only a minor impact. As the report asserts , the institutional challenges the reforms aim to address—limited administrative capacity, weak rule of law, and a weak economy—are also those that hamper the implementation of the AA and DCFTA and lead to a slow approximation process.
Another concern is that complete trade liberalization and regulatory integration with the EU, as foreseen by the agreement, may impose costs on domestic actors that are not remedied by corresponding EU assistance, as happened in Central Europe.
Some of these costs may be political. This could result in more significant opposition to overall economic reforms and reignite long-standing regional differences. Efforts to restructure the economy in Ukraine so far have not been accompanied by assistance to local industries, though this is standard practice for membership candidates. The rejection in the Dutch referendum of the AA was partly driven by concerns that even though the agreement does not include a membership perspective , Ukraine would sneak into the EU with de facto access to the cohesion and regional funds.
To its credit, the EU reacted quickly to the Ukraine crisis of by allocating generous funding for macro-economic stabilization. Since then, the EU has mobilized 3. An additional 2 billion euros in MFA was promised during the Eastern Partnership Summit in December , which would increase the overall assistance framework to 15 billion euros see table 1. No disbursements from the IMF program to Ukraine have been approved since April because of unmet conditions. But as in , MFA tranches were released in on the assumption that Ukraine would comply with conditions eventually.
Some of the unresolved issues are the creation of an anticorruption court and the raising of gas prices. Nonetheless, Western financial backing remains crucial to guarantee stability ahead of the election year.
The EU argues that there is a lack of absorption capacity for its funds. Foreign investors were initially upbeat about the possibilities offered by land reform , but this is a politically sensitive issue and has been postponed. With a total of million euros so far allocated out of the 1. In , the EU added supporting energy efficiency and public finance management to this list, showing that it is engaged in all reform areas.
The European Commission and the German government jointly funded about one-quarter of the humanitarian aid provisions in for conflict-affected areas in eastern Ukraine that are under government control.
The Brussels-based SGUA, under the directorate general for neighborhood and enlargement negotiations in the European Commission, has established itself as a key institution in its three years of existence. With around forty full-time sectoral experts focusing on various aspects of Ukraine reforms , the commission possesses the necessary sectoral knowledge about the country, has direct access to the Ukrainian government, and has managed to make planning EU assistance more integrated into the ongoing reform processes.
The mission was designed to support law enforcement and reforms to the rule of law at a time when military assistance was the most vital issue. It was able to raise its visibility and had more impact by broadening its mandate to include practical projects such as supporting criminal investigations or community policing. The European Parliament enacted the Parliamentary Support and Capacity Building program to help it cope with the enormous volume of legislative work.
This kicked off with an assessment led by Pat Cox, the former European Parliament president in A larger consensus-building process, known as the Jean Monnet Dialogues, began as part of this program, but has gained little traction so far.
Last but not least, the EU has technical assistance projects , with member states providing many more. Although this makes assistance fragmented and coordination an uphill battle, it also gives the EU unprecedented insight and avenues of influence. The variety of EU actors is a challenge.
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