Ukrainian society dreams of three difficult goals, of which joining the European Union is the most tangible. The other two are to join NATO and drive the Russian invader out of your country. Membership of the Atlantic Alliance is virtually impossible as long as Russia occupies part of its territory, as French General Jerome Pellistrandi told this newspaper last week. More and more voices among Kiev’s allies are recognizing that the liberation of all areas of Ukraine is also not an achievable goal. After decades, joining the EU is a realizable ideal. However, the civil society institutions involved in the accession process are calling on the government to make it clear to citizens that the path to get there will take many years.
Ukraine is a country in desperate need of good news. It is also a country that has made great efforts in legal reforms to be accepted as an EU candidate, as Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, highlighted during her last visit to Kiev last Saturday. What is most remarkable and unprecedented, Von der Leyen said, is that Ukraine has leapt forward while fighting a war for its existence. But Ukrainian political analysis centers have warned that the executive branch is playing with fire by reassuring the population that it is possible for Ukraine to join the EU in the medium term. Prime Minister Denis Shmihal reiterated in the newspaper Politico last January that the goal is to join the EU in 2025. His Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs, Olga Stefanishina, reiterated this in Voice of America last September: Ukraine will be ready in two years to join the community club.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed this Wednesday the European Commission’s recommendation to start accession negotiations with Kiev next year. “Today the history of Ukraine and all of Europe took the right step,” the president said in a speech posted on social networks. Zelensky added that Ukraine “should be in the EU” and that “Ukrainians deserve it” because its army “protects European values” and the country was able to “keep its word” and reform state institutions “in the midst of war.” . “on a large scale.”
I welcome today’s recommendation from the European Commission to start EU accession negotiations with Ukraine.
This is a strong and historic step that paves the way to a stronger EU with Ukraine as a member.
I thank the EU and personally @vonderleyen for supporting Ukraine in… pic.twitter.com/7py1imxCRT
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володиmir Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 8, 2023
“It won’t take a few years”
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“We need to give citizens a realistic picture, not dreams.” This is the warning of Victoria Melnik, director of the European Integration Program at the Center for Political and Legal Reforms of Ukraine. Melnik and nine other experts took part in a conference organized in Kyiv on the preparation of Ukrainian ministries to implement reforms for EU accession on the last weekend of October. “One thing is to reform the laws, and another is how they are applied, and that takes time,” said the Ambassador of the Netherlands, Jennes de Mol: “The negotiations will take years.” This must be taken into account to avoid frustrations to avoid. “It definitely won’t be a few years.”
“Integration into the EU will not be a walk in the park and photos on Instagram, it will be extremely difficult because there will be great competition between countries,” said Hanna Hopko, president of ANTS, the political studies organization that organized the debate . Aliona Getmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center, pointed to the agricultural sector as the largest area of friction between states and recalled the current conflict with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, which veto the export of Ukrainian grain and vegetables despite the resolutions of the European Commission, which exempts them from customs duties.
The conclusion of all analysts at the ANTS conference was that the Ukrainian executive is still ready to start accession negotiations with guarantees. And the main problem, they agreed, was the small number of officials required to introduce the 28,000 community standards that the country must adopt from the start. According to Ivan Nagorniak, deputy director of the government’s Office for European Integration, 1,600 of these regulations are mandatory in the initial phase of the access period. Nagorniak revealed that the negotiating team was still in the selection phase and that his Sherpas had so far been given two months of preparation time, which Getmanchuk summarized as a group of no more than 20 people who “know the language of Brussels.”
“There is not much progress and staffing levels are low in many ministries. Only four ministries [de 21] They have instructions on reforming the public service in accordance with EU standards,” Melnik said. Getmanchuk stated that there is still no plan on how the negotiations will be conducted. His recommendation is to follow the Polish model, which had two chief negotiators with coordination powers across all ministries: “We have not made up our minds here and risk losing a year without progress, as was the case with Macedonia.” [del Norte]“.
Getmanchuk and Melnik emphasized that it is important to educate a generation from universities that will show the way to the EU, “people for whom Ukraine’s accession to the EU is their reason for living.” To achieve this, the Society’s mentality needs to be changed, said Oleksander Saienko, former reform minister during Petro Poroshenko’s presidency: “We have to change the Ukrainian attitude, which believes that the less bureaucracy, the better.” Because now the priority is to have a competent and less to create a corrupt functional body. Doing this effectively is key to access to the EU.”
In Ukraine, as in other countries of the former Soviet Union, there is an endemic allergy to government intervention. The two main political currents at the origins of the EU, social democracy and Christian democracy, are practically non-existent in Ukraine and are being replaced by libertarianism and private initiative through the state. According to Getmanchuk, the path to the EU must also be the construction of a new country in which the reforms implemented, “no matter how unpopular they may be, are not sold as an imposition from Brussels, but because it is Ukraine that wants to join.” in the EU.” “Otherwise,” said the director of New Europe, “populism will be encouraged.”
Attract talent from the private sector
All this will be possible if Ukraine first manages to create at least an elite corps of 1,000 officials to adapt to the EU’s requirements, said Hlib Vishlinski, director of the Center for Economic Strategy: “The best experts have given up their ministries.” the private sector. The war has made the situation even worse, because those who remain in the public service do so almost as volunteers, they receive just enough to survive.” Nagorniak admitted that it will be crucial to attract talent from the private sector and hopes that he will receive Community funding for this.
Vishlinski’s words point to one of the areas where Brussels warns there is still a lot to be solved: the systemic corruption that plagues the country. Sources in the Ukrainian presidential office told Time Magazine on October 30 that corruption is increasing despite Zelensky’s numerous dismissals in the public administration on suspicion of corruption and despite efforts to create an independent judiciary and a powerful prosecutor’s office: “People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow?” These sources who spoke to Time did so on condition of anonymity, but political officials said so publicly using their first and last names. Danilo Hermantsev, chairman of the Finance and Taxation Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, admitted last February that economic irregularities in the customs service “only got worse during the war.” Mark Savchuk, adviser to the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Bureau, told EL PAÍS last August that the poison of corruption continues to affect all levels, including the presidency: “We have a serious corruption problem, because even in Zelensky’s team there is corruption and ineptitude .”
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