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ABSTRACT
The article analyzes the impact on statebuilding as an aspect of Ukraine’s integration with the EU. The Euromaidan had a profound, yet hardly recognized, effect on EU-Ukraine relations, particularly in terms of the EU’s subsequent support of domestic reforms in Ukraine. Following the Euromaidan, the EU supported Ukraine’s aspirations to enter “economic integration and political association” by concluding an Association Agreement – an agreement which exceeded the capacity of the Ukrainian state to implement it. To increase this capacity, the EU has supported reform of public administration and has provided far-reaching assistance on capacity building in the government. This article posits that since 2014 European integration has become tantamount with (re)building the state structures in Ukraine. Therefore, the significance of European integration for Ukraine goes beyond the implementation of the Association Agreement and extends to root-and-branch reform of Ukrainian state structures.
Acknowledgments
The author acknowledges the support this research paper received from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme of the EU (project EU-STRAT ‘The European Union and Eastern Partnership Countries – An Inside-Out Analysis and Strategic Assessment’) under grant agreement number 693382.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. However, the conclusion of the AA was delayed four times (for details see Wolczuk at al. Citation2017).
2. The ENP is a composite policy, framing relations with Union’s neighbors in the east and south. The ENP subsumes a number of initiatives, most notably the Mediterranean Union and the Eastern Partnership, and country-specific bilateral instruments, which are either legally binding (such as new Association Agreements) or are more political in their nature (such as the Association Agendas), as well as various assistance programmes such as the European Neighborhood Instrument.
3. From 2014 to 2017 bilateral assistance to Ukraine – in the context of the European Neighborhood Instrument – was provided in the form of annual Special Measures. For 2017–20, the Single Strategic Framework for 2017–20 was adopted, which includes “good governance” as one of the key priorities for funding.
4. The empirical section is based on first, an analysis of documentary sources as well as on extensive contacts and seminar presentations with EU and Ukrainian officials and experts held by the Ukraine Forum, Russia and Eurasian Programme at Chatham House in London (of which the author is an Associate Fellow) during 2014–19. Most of those meetings were held under the Chatham House rule so information cannot be attributed to specific participants. The participants included, amongst others, Peter Wagner (head of the SGUA), Katarina Mathernova (deputy director general in the European Commission), Oleksandr Saienko (Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers in charge of PAR (2016–19), Ivanna Klimpush-Tsintsadze, deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration (2016–19). The empirical section also draws on extensive information gathered during fieldwork in Kyiv (in May 2018) to prepare a study on the institutional mechanism for the implementation of the AA in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine for the European Parliament (see Wolczuk Citation2018). This fieldwork was greatly facilittated by the EU Delegation in Kyiv. The author is deeply grateful to all EU and Ukrainian officials and experts for sharing their insights.
5. Author’s interview with EU official, Kyiv, September 2013.