Expert highlight "very slow" progress in Ukraine's EU reforms

Press-release, Kyiv, November 15th, 2010

Ukraine has implemented only 4 out of over 60 analyzed reform priorities, identified in the EU-Ukraine Association Agenda (AA), the key document regulating EU-Ukraine relations. Trends during the reporting period (July-October, 2010) were marked with both positive measures taken by the public administration to implement AA’s priorities, and stagnation of changes in the “political dialogue” segment, primarily linked to worsening symptoms in the field of respect for human rights and democratic procedures.

The report, presented on November 15th, 2010, at a press conference in Kyiv, is an outcome of the second round (July-October, 2010) of a civil society’s monitoring of the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agenda. The project is supported by the International Renaissance Foundation (OSI Network).

Read the report in detail: 

Full report in Ukrainian 

Full report in English  

«Results of the civil society’s monitoring show a slowed down pace of EUintegration reforms in Ukraine, and partially lack of information on the European integration policy», comments director of the project, the head of the board of the Ukrainian Centre for Independent Political Research Yulia Tyshchenko. “This fact raises concern, since a low “arithmetic average” of the policy in this field can be an indicator of the reforms process in general. There is lack of open debate about the Ukrainian interest in this field, as well as lack of public authorities’ actions designed to bring Ukraine closer to the EU”, she adds.

During the second stage (July-October 2010) of the Civil society’s monitoring of the AA implementation the experts analyzed the pace of implementation of 69 priorities of the EU-Ukraine Association Agenda, including 3 additional priorities.

In total, experts conclude that only 4 priorities of the EU-Ukraine Association Agenda have been fully implemented by the Ukrainian government. 55 priorities are at the implementation stage; 10 priorities have not been implemented at all.

The experts evaluated as implemented a number of issues under the sections Trade and trade-related issues; Energy co-operation including nuclear issues.

The vast majority of priorities are currently under an implementation stage. 

The situation has not improved (compared to the first round of monitoring conducted in March-June, 2010), in a number of fields, including “development of an appropriate legislative and institutional framework related to migration management” (in the part related to establishment of a National Migration Service or another body competent to implement the national migration policy).

Experts concluded that priorities have been mostly not implemented in: some segments of the “political dialogue”; in priorities related to ensuring respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; public internal control and external audit and control; information society; and environment.

In general, the reporting period (July-October, 2010) was marked with both positive measures taken by the public administration to implement AA’s priorities, and stagnation of changes in the “political dialogue” segment, primarily linked to worsening symptoms in the field of respect for human rights and democratic procedures.

The ruling taken by the Constitutional Court on September, 30th has opened a way for substantial increase of the President’s competences and restored a centralized public administration model headed by the President. Re-entry into effect of the Constitution in its 1996 version has created a precedent of constitutional and legislative instability with regard to the institutions of political system and public administration themselves.

Today Ukraine is virtually lacking a structured debate (involving public authorities and civil society) on constitutional changes.

Elections to the local public administration bodies have been held according to a controversial version of the law; some provisions of the law – specifically those concerning nomination of candidate members of the local public bodies, ways and mechanisms to appoint members of the district election commissions (DEC) and territorial election commissions (TEC) – contradict recommendations of the Venice Commission.

Relations between public administration bodies and human rights NGOs, think tanks, have shown ambiguous trends, including pressure on NGOs. Ukrainian Helsinki Union reacted to this calling to stop persecuting the Ukrainian human rights activists.

Adoption of Ukraine’s public procurement law has become a significant boost to the negotiation process on the Association Agreement, specifically on the public procurement chapter.

Mutual access to markets on a number of trade positions remains a complicated issue. In the segment of trade in agricultural goods the sides are not ready for full trade liberalization. It is possible that tariff quotas will be established under FTA+ for a part of agricultural production. Ukraine’s export duties, including those on sunflower seeds, remain an open question. Talks are continued on geographical indications.

Background

Participants of the conference:

Yulia Tyshchenko, the Head of the Board of the Ukrainian Centre for Independent Political Research; 

Ihor Burakovskyi, the Director of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting; 

Ihor Koliushko, the head of the board of the Centre for Political and Legal Reforms; 

Olexandr Sushko, Research Director of the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation; 

Anna Golubovska-Onisimova, President of the Ukrainian National environmental NGO MAMA-86; 

Iryna Solonenko, director of the European Program of the International Renaissance Foundation.

EU-Ukraine Association Agenda (AA) is a key document regulating EU-Ukraine relations before the new Association Agreement is signed and enters into force. 

The Association Agenda outlines key priorities of reforms that Ukraine needs to implement to fully use the opportunities provided by the deepened cooperation with the EU. The practical aim of the Association Agenda is to clearly define priorities requiring urgent action before signature of the Association Agreement. 

The project is implemented by a consortium of Ukrainian think tanks, including 

The Ukrainian Centre for Independent Political Research, 

The Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting and 

The Centre for Political and Legal Reforms. 

The media support is provided by the international NGO "Internews Ukraine".

The project is supported by the International Renaissance Foundation.

It is implemented in co-operation with the Civil Society Expert Council under the Ukrainian section of the EU-Ukraine Cooperation Committee, as well as with the working group on Environmental EU integration, that has monitored and analyzed the “Environment” segment of AA’s priorities. The monitoring involved in total 30 experts of the Ukrainian NGO think tanks.

Contacts:

Director of the project – Yulia Tyshchenko, tyjulia@gmail.com

Coordinator of the project – Svitlana Horobchyshyna, sveta@uncpd.kiev.ua

More information (video of the press conference, the full text of the report, and its summary) will soon be available at the project’s blogs:

www.es-ukraina.blogspot.com

http://eu-pda.livejournal.com/

1^st monitoring report (March-June 2010):

http://es-ukraina.blogspot.com/2010/09/ukraines-csos-analyzed-pace-of-eu.html

Description of the project:

Wikipedia: Громадський моніторинг Порядку денного асоціації Україна-ЄС

The goal of the European programme of the International Renaissance Foundation  is to promote Ukraine’s European integration through financial and expert support of the civil society’s initiatives. 

More at: www.irf.ua