On December 14, 2023, a major event occurred - the leaders of the European Union countries decided to begin negotiations with Ukraine on accession to the EU. This is a great achievement of the Ukrainian people, but the decision of the European Council is primarily political. In fact, the path to starting negotiations involves a number of technical and, as it turns out, political steps.
To begin negotiations, the European Commission had to prepare a draft negotiating framework - defining the principles and procedures for accession negotiations with the EU. The European Commission began work on the framework in January and on March 12 officially submitted proposals for a draft negotiating framework for Ukraine and Moldova to the EU Council.
In parallel, the European Commission began screening, that is, an analysis of Ukrainian legislation for compliance with the law of the European Union, which, by the way, can continue after the start of negotiations. To prepare for this process, Ukraine conducted a self-screening in advance, which made it possible to determine the state of adaptation of our legislation to European legislation.
It should be remembered that Ukraine had to implement a number of recommendations from the European Commission, the progress of which will be assessed at the EU summit on March 19, which was a condition for starting the negotiation process. To this end, the Cabinet of Ministers at its meeting approved an Action Plan for the implementation of the recommendations of the European Commission, which our country received in November last year as part of the European Union Enlargement Package.
In addition, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a bill on respectable lobbying, which was also one of the additional requirements of the European Commission for opening negotiations. At the same time, a number of experts had comments regarding the adopted law: in particular, in the current version there are no effective incentives for the shadowing of lobbying subjects, which in conclusion will not contribute to the creation and development of the lobbying market in the country. The law also poses risks for civil society organizations, since it is not known how some of the provisions on commercial interests will be applied in practice. Finally, the legalization of lobbying should not become a purely formal implementation of the recommendations of the European Commission.
The actual process of preparing the negotiating framework was also not without incidents and political intrigue. First, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the framework for negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU would not be ready before the European elections, which will take place in early June. Although the Ukrainian side argued that there was no talk of any difficulties in preparing the text by March.
Subsequently, the president of the EU executive body changed her position and emphasized that the framework would still be presented in mid-March. Western media associate this with the elections, because Ursula von der Leyen plans to be re-elected as chairman of the European Commission. Politico's sources note that these attempts to delay the presentation of the negotiating framework appeared to be a combination of pressure from her own political group, the European People's Party and several EU countries. However, pressure from a group of EU ambassadors - mostly from Eastern Europe - forced von der Leyen to return to her original commitments. This was additionally confirmed by European Commission representative Eric Mamer.
During the preparation of the negotiations, another ambiguous point arose, which rather concerns the internal political situation in Ukraine. On February 29, European Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi published a letter from the leader of the European Solidarity faction, Petro Poroshenko, asking the latter to influence the Ukrainian government to stop the “discriminatory practice” of not allowing the opposition to go abroad.
In fact, Petro Poroshenko complained to the Hungarian European Commissioner about the harassment of the opposition in Ukraine, which, according to the fifth president of Ukraine, does not meet the criteria for EU membership. Because of this letter, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna accused Poroshenko of trying to disrupt European integration, calling such a step a manifestation of the highest cynicism.
Let's hope that the scandalous situation will not have far-reaching consequences. In this context, Stefanishyna expressed the hope that there will be no delays in the European integration process. However, Ukrainian experts note that hostility between the Poroshenko and Zelensky teams can harm Ukraine and its future.
Political speculation around the European integration process is unacceptable.
So, then the already prepared text of the negotiation framework will be submitted for consideration to the EU member states, which must make the final decision. The convening of the intergovernmental conference is considered the physical beginning of negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the European Union. An intergovernmental conference is actually negotiations between representatives of member states, a special procedure for reaching decisions outside of debates in the Council of the EU. The purpose of the Intergovernmental Conference is to translate the achieved political agreements into the legal plane.
However, according to media reports, the approval of the negotiating framework may take several months and occur after the European Parliament elections in June. One of the reasons is said to be the desire of a number of countries for Ukraine and Moldova not to be ahead of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the path to EU membership. At the same time, Kyiv and Brussels understand the importance of making key decisions on enlargement during the Belgian presidency of the EU Council.
Hungary's EU presidency begins on July 1, which may increase the risk of delaying the start of negotiations. Although Europravda notes that Hungary itself is not enthusiastic about the prospect of making a decision on the Ukrainian issue, since it would most likely not be possible to slow down the process due to the lack of allies, and allowing this to happen would mean political humiliation for Budapest. .
Therefore, we are now at the stage of approving the negotiating framework, which, in the context of the Russian invasion, indicates significant progress by Ukraine. It is worth emphasizing that the negotiations involve a difficult path of reforms, checks and reports, and require the cohesion of the political environment and civil society.
In practice, the negotiating framework for countries that have joined or are joining the EU is structurally similar, but has specific features for each candidate. Negotiations include ongoing monitoring of the country's compliance with the guidelines or Copenhagen Criteria. Ukraine will have to work through more than 35 negotiating sections, which are combined into 6 clusters.
In addition to the fundamental sections (“Judicial proceedings”, “Justice, freedom, security”, “Public procurement”, “Statistics” and “Financial control”), which will open first and be closed last, for example, Ukraine must carry out a deep reform according to EU standards about antimonopoly policy (cluster “Internal market”) and so on. Negotiations on each block open after the country reaches the required initial indicators, and work on each section is carried out separately with established benchmarks.
Some sectoral reforms will require political, technical and financial assistance from Brussels. Ukraine needs to make the administrative and institutional infrastructure compliant with EU legislation in these areas, implement EU laws and standards (acquis).
The Ukrainian leadership has ambitious plans to complete the negotiation process in two years. Whether such a reactive pace is possible, given the experience of other countries, time will tell. However, against the backdrop of a full-scale war, defending Ukrainian interests upon joining the EU while maintaining partnerships with our neighbors requires the consolidation of the political environment, the effective functioning of government institutions and the involvement of civil society.
Ukrainians' support for joining the EU is constantly growing and now stands at 84%. Therefore, at this difficult stage, it is important to maintain unity and prevent disappointment in the European course of our country.
