Recently, the Ukrainian government for the first time has resorted to a quantitative measure of Ukraine’s European integration progress, reporting about 41 percent of successfully fulfilled tasks by the end of 2017.
However, based on the results of the alternative monitoring carried out by the Ukrainian Center for European Policy within the framework of the “Navigator of the Agreement” system, we receive another result. It is very important to mention that the difference in the indicators was caused by diverse calculation methodology.
For instance, the Office of the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine estimated implementation of the total amount of the obligations according to the European Union-Ukraine political and trade Association Agreement in 2017.
The Ukrainian Center for European Policy conducted an evaluation of legislative approximation according to Title 4 and 5. We consider these parts as obligations of great importance. Only having it fully implemented in legislation is it possible to talk about the success in the agreement’ss performance.
So, according to the annexes of Ukraine’s political and trade Association Agreement with the European Union (Title 4 and 5), from Dec. 1, 2016 until November 1, 2017, Ukraine fulfilled only 10 out of 86 commitments.
That is only 11 percent of the total number of tasks on the approximation of the national legislation of Ukraine to the legislation of the European Union.
Is this pace of implementation of the agreement acceptable for reaching the deadline in 2025?
The answer will be disappointing – the implementation of the agreement is very slow.
Assuming that, on average, Ukraine will carry out up to 40 tasks per year, the agreement will be fulfilled only in 2035, a delay of 10 years.
What are the most and the least successful spheres?
‘Technical’ leader of the year
Implementation of the E.U. framework legislation in the field of technical regulation has received the highest score. The requirements of the relevant E.U. legal acts regarding units of measurement, accreditation and market surveillance, general product safety, liability for defective products and common framework for the marketing of products have been fully implemented into national legislation. New standards have already begun to be applied in practice.
In the middle
In the area of consumer rights protection, we can talk about the implementation of two commitments: the directive concerning products which do not comply with declared visual characteristics and endanger the health or safety of consumers, as well as the directive on consumer protection in the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers.
In the field of business activities, we can node a partial progress.
Namely, the adoption of amendments to the law on accounting and financial reporting in Ukraine allows us to assert that the implementation of basic provisions of the European legislation on the simplification of financial reporting is indeed taking place, which cannot be said about other acts of the EU.
Due to the painstaking work of the key stakeholders, a number of basic laws were adopted in the field of energy efficiency. In particular, has been implemented requirements on energy efficiency and certification, a system of commercial accounting for the consumption of different types of energy, requirements for public procurement of energy services, housing and communal services market organization. In addition, an important framework law to launch the energy efficiency fund was adopted, which will provide financial support to projects for the energy modernization of buildings in the residential sector.
Implementation of commitments in the field of environment is also quite successful, especially in the environmental impact assessment and water management sub-sectors.
In the area of taxation, Ukraine has not yet been able to fully align the national legislation with the requirements of the EU on the exemption from value added tax and excise duty of goods imported by persons traveling from third countries.
Running in place
Regarding customs issues, fulfillment of commitments relating to the simplification of customs formalities has almost failed, and its progress is too slow.
Implementation of tasks in the oil sector also require changes to the national legislation as well as the selection of appropriate implementation models on the creation and maintaining minimum stocks of crude oil and/or petroleum products and support for the use of environmentally friendly motor fuels (biofuels).
While we can see at least the process of drafting normative legal acts in the road transport sector, there are no developments in the spheres of maritime transport and inland waterway transport.
In the sphere of consumer rights protection, commitments have been implemented partially and with different level of compliance.
In addition, Ukraine demonstrates different results in fulfillment of commitments in the field of social policy. Before the signing of the Association Agreement, the Ukrainian legislation has already contained provisions of certain necessary directives.
However, there are problems with the fulfillment of commitments to implement EU acts on occupational health and safety into the Ukrainian legislation. No standard of safety and health protection has been adopted so far. Moreover, existing standards actually do not work, causing direct harm to the health of workers.
None of the directives regarding blood services has been implemented in the public health sector. Nevertheless, we should note that the Ministry of Health of Ukraine jointly with international experts has elaborated a draft national strategy for the development of blood services system.
The worst situation is in the transport sector, where no single EU act stipulated by annexes to the Association Agreement has been implemented.
The situation with legislation approximation in the field of maritime transport is complicated, as no legislative act has been developed yet. This sphere is extremely important for the growth of Ukrainian export and maritime infrastructure development.
Instead of conclusions
The Association Agreement implementation in terms of legislation approximation is slow and non-compliant with deadlines stipulated by the agreement.
However, we should admire the positive point – finally, in the fourth year of implementation of the agreement, the government and parliament are planning to consolidate their efforts. Undoubtedly, this should stimulate the acceleration of the fulfillment of Ukraine’s obligations, because it is impossible to move without political leadership.
The main problem is the lack of a global political goal, for example, a clear perspective of Ukraine’s membership in the EU. This weakens the understanding of the need to implement the agreement among various interest groups that are not interested in changing the old rules of the game. Only agricultural exporters and industrial exporters are able to see benefit from the implementation of the agreement.
We will see success only if there is a professional sectoral expertise, as well as the real desire of the parliament, government and interested groups to make European integration initiatives a priority in their work.
Liubov Akulenko is the executive director of the Ukrainian Centre for European Policy nongovernmental organization.
