There are three difficult goals that Ukrainian society dreams of achieving, and of these, accessing the European Union is the most tangible. The other two are to join NATO and expel the Russian invader from your country. Being a member of the Atlantic Alliance is practically impossible as long as Russia occupies part of its territory, as French General Jerôme Pellistrandi explained to this newspaper last week. More and more voices among kyiv’s allies recognize that liberating all of Ukraine’s territories is not an achievable goal either. Entering the EU is, after decades knocking on the door, an ideal that can be realized. However, civil society institutions involved in the accession process ask the Government to make it clear to citizens that the path to achieving it will take many years.
Ukraine is a country that urgently needs good news. It is also a country that has made a great effort in legal reforms to be accepted as an EU candidate, as highlighted by Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, during her last visit to Kiev, last Saturday. Most remarkable and unprecedented, Von der Leyen said, is that Ukraine has taken a leap forward while fighting a war for its existence. But Ukrainian political analysis centers have warned that the Executive is playing with fire by reiterating to the population that in the medium term it is possible for Ukraine to be accepted into the EU. Prime Minister Denis Shmihal reiterated last January in the newspaper Political that the objective was to access the EU in 2025. Its deputy prime minister for European Affairs, Olga Stefanishina, repeated it last September in Voice of America: Ukraine will be ready in two years to be part of the community club.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, welcomed this Wednesday the recommendation of the European Commission to begin accession negotiations with kyiv next year. “Today the history of Ukraine and all of Europe has taken a correct step,” declared the president in a speech published 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 has been able to “keep its word” and reform state institutions “in the middle of war.” on a large scale.”
I welcome today’s recommendation by the European Commission to open EU accession negotiations with Ukraine.
This is a strong and historic step that paves the way to a stronger EU with Ukraine as its member.
I thank the EU and personally @vonderleyen for supporting Ukraine on… pic.twitter.com/7py1imxCRT
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 8, 2023
“It won’t be a couple of years”
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“We have to communicate to citizens a realistic image and not dreams.” This is the warning from Victoria Melnik, director of the European integration program at the Center for Political and Legal Reform of Ukraine. Melnik and nine other experts participated on the last weekend of October in a conference organized in kyiv on the preparation of Ukrainian ministries for the implementation of reforms to access the EU. “One thing is to reform the laws and another is how they are applied, and that requires time,” said the ambassador of the Netherlands, Jennes de Mol: “The negotiations will last years. It must be taken into account to avoid frustrations. “It certainly won’t be a couple of years.”
“Integration into the EU will not be a bed of roses 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 entity that organized the debate. Aliona Getmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center, pointed out the agricultural sector as the largest area of friction between States, and recalled the current conflict with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, which are vetoing exports of Ukrainian cereals and vegetables despite the resolutions of the European Commission that allows them free of tariffs.
The conclusion of all the analysts at the ANTS conference was that the Ukrainian executive branch is still green to start accession negotiations with guarantees. And the main problem, they agreed, is the low level of officials to introduce the 28,000 community standards that the country must assume from the start. Of these regulations, 1,600 are mandatory in the early stages of the access period, according to Ivan Nagorniak, deputy director of the Government Office for European Integration. Nagorniak revealed that the negotiating team is still in the selection phase, and that his sherpa They have so far received two months of preparation, which Getmanchuk summarized as a group of no more than 20 people who “master the language of Brussels.”
“Not much progress is being made and staff levels in many ministries are low. Only four ministries [de 21] They have directions to reform the civil service according to EU standards,” Melnik said. Getmanchuk indicated that there is still no plan on how the negotiations will be led. His recommendation is to follow the Polish model, which had two chief negotiators with coordination power over all ministries: “We have not decided here, and we run the risk of losing a year without progress, as happened with Macedonia. [del Norte]”.
Getmanchuk and Melnik stressed that it is essential to start from universities to train a generation that will lead the path to the EU, “people who have Ukraine’s entry into the EU as a reason for life.” To do this, the mentality of society must be changed, according to Oleksander Saienko, former Minister of Reforms during the presidency of Petro Poroshenko: “We must transform the Ukrainian attitude that believes that the less bureaucracy, the better. Because now it is a priority to create a competent and less corrupt functional body. Being effective in this is key to accessing the EU.”
In Ukraine, as in other countries of the former Soviet Union, there is an endemic allergy to state intervention. The two main political currents in which the origins of the EU lie, social democracy and Christian democracy, are practically non-existent in Ukraine and are replaced by libertarianism and private initiative over the State. The path to the EU must also be the construction of a new country, according to Getmanchuk, in which the reforms that are applied, “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,” indicates the director of New Europe, “populism will be encouraged.”
Attract talent from the private sector
All this will be possible if Ukraine is initially able to create at least an elite corps of 1,000 officials to adapt to the demands of the EU, according to Hlib Vishlinski, director of the Center for Economic Strategy: “The best professionals have abandoned ministries by the private sector. The war has aggravated it, because those who continue in public service almost do so as volunteers, they receive just enough to survive.” Nagorniak admitted that attracting talent from the private sector will be essential, and for this he hopes to receive community funding.
Vishlinski’s words point to one of the areas in which Brussels warns that there is much left to solve, the systemic corruption suffered by the country. Sources from the Ukrainian presidency explained to the magazine on October 30 time that despite the many dismissals approved by Zelensky in the public administration due to suspicions of corruption, and despite the efforts to create an independent judiciary and a powerful Prosecutor’s Office, corruption is growing: “There are people stealing as if there were no tomorrow.” These sources who spoke with time They did so on condition of remaining anonymous, but political leaders publicly stated the same thing with their names and surnames. Danilo Hermantsev, head of the Ukrainian Parliament’s committee on finance and taxes, admitted last February that economic irregularities in the customs service “have only gotten worse during the war.” Mark Savchuk, advisor to the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Office, explained to 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 are corruption and ineptitude.”
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