Print this page

Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

European integration is the main and invariable foreign policy priority of Ukraine, and further development and deepening of relations between Ukraine and the EU is carried out on the principles of political association and economic integration.

The main strategic document for achieving these goals is the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Ukraine, of the other part. In accordance with Article 486 of the Agreement from November 1, 2014, it was temporarily applied until it entered into force. On September 1, 2017, after a long process of ratification, the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU entered into force in full.

In terms of its scope and thematic coverage, the Agreement became the largest international legal document in the history of Ukraine and the largest international agreement with a third country ever concluded by the European Union. It has 1,200 pages and consists of the following parts:

  • Preamble as an introductory declaration to the Agreement, setting out the purpose and basic principles of the Agreement;
  • 7 Titles, such as the General Principles, Political Cooperation and Foreign and Security Policy, Justice Freedom and Security, "Trade and Trade related matters (DCFTA), Economic and Sector Cooperation, Financial Cooperation with Anti-Fraud Provisions, as well as Institutional, General and Final Provisions.
  • 43 Annexes, in which sets out the EU regulations to be adopted by a certain date, and
  • 3 Protocols.

The Association Agreement also became a vivid demonstration of a qualitatively new format of relations between Ukraine and the EU on the principles of political association and economic integration.

Progress in the implementation of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union is carried out on an ongoing basis by the information and analytical system for monitoring the implementation of the Association Agreement "Pulse of the Agreement", developed and implemented by the Government in 2017 and publicly available by the link.

In total, the system provides for the implementation of almost eight thousand measures, distributed within about two thousand tasks in the implementation of the action plan for the implementation of the Association Agreement (approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine from October 25, 2017 № 1106).

From the begging of temporarily application of certain provisions of the Agreement, Ukraine has implemented 56% of the measures envisaged by the Government's Action Plan for the Implementation of the Association Agreement until 2024.

In addition, in June 2021, on the 7th anniversary of the signing of the economic part of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine presented the government report on the implementation of the Agreement in 2015-2020. Also, the key achievements of the six years of Ukraine's integration into the EU were noted:

  • Decentralization reform is one of Ukraine's success stories. One of the components of the reform was the creation of almost 900 CNAPs, which now provide convenient public services to citizens. The reform has increased the economic, social and investment opportunities of the regions.
  • The titanic shift of Ukrainian exports to the EU Single Market, where product safety requirements are among the strictest in the world and a very high degree of competition. Since the beginning of the free trade zone, the share of trade in goods and services with the EU is more than 40% of Ukraine's total trade. After the visa-free, which opened the free movement of persons, the EU's DCFTA also opened up access to the European market, with much of our exports to the EU today being goods and services produced by Ukrainian small and medium-sized enterprises. Thus, if in 2013 Ukrainian exports to EU amounted to 13,4 billion euros, then in 2019 it reached 19,1 billion euro.
  • Customs: the customs formalities for enterprises with a high level of trust are simplified, created grounds for mutual recognition of the status of authorized economic operators. In March 2021, the stage of national application of the electronic transit system (NCTS), which is the basis of the European common transit system, began.
  • Significant progress in the digital, where now are considered telecommunication services as a first sphere to which the EU internal market regime will apply.
  • Food safety.
  • Integration into the European energy market. Today Ukraine is fully synchronized with Europe in the gas market by switching to daily balancing. Regarding the electricity market, recently, in April 2021, the Parliament passed a law on the certification of the transmission system operator of NPC Ukrenergo. This creates the preconditions for the synchronization of the unified energy system of Ukraine with the pooling of the energy systems of the EU member states ENTSO-E.
  • Public procurement. Ukraine has introduced the European rules in the public procurement sphere, so now they are possible only through the ProZorro electronic system, minimizing the human factor and corruptions risks. The state has economized hundreds of billions of hryvnias thanks to introduction this system.
  • The launch of a full-fledged river transportation market began with the adoption of the Law of Ukraine "On Inland Water Transport" in December 2020.

The report on the implementation of the Association Agreement was prepared by the Government Office for Coordination on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of the SCMU with the support of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine and experts of the EU Association4U project.

The full text of the Report is available by the link.

Legal and regulatory framework on EU integration

 

Relevant? Tell your friends