The main purpose of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Brussels on February 9 is to discuss with the leaders of the EU member states and heads of European institutions the issues of supplying weapons, financial support and holding the Russian Federation accountable for war crimes. But another important aspect is that this was not only Zelensky’s first visit to the EU capital after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, but also the first visit of the President of Ukraine as a candidate country for EU accession..

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Ukraine is gradually moving towards EU membership and is getting acquainted with various elements of the bureaucratically and technically complex methodology of joining the EU through its own experience. The Ukrainian authorities hope that Ukraine will be able to go through this process very quickly and become a member of the EU in two years.. At the same time, the heads of European institutions are reserved about the time frame for Ukraine's accession and emphasize that the procedure does not imply clear chronological boundaries of different stages, and the speed of accession depends on merit - the pace and quality of reforms of the candidate country.

Recall that the general statement on the results of the Ukraine-EU summit does not mention the date for the start of accession negotiations, but there is another important element - the promise of the European Commission to provide Ukraine with its preliminary assessment of the seven recommendations in the spring of this year, that is, before the publication of the final report in the autumn. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, for his part, assured that he would contribute to the achievement of the decision of the member states on further progress of Ukraine on the path to joining the EU, according to the report of the European Commission. Apparently, European officials, on the one hand, do not talk about the rapid accession of Ukraine, but shift their focus to the quality of Ukrainian reforms and the procedures that guide Europeans when deciding on EU enlargement.. However, on the other hand, European institutions seem ready to help Ukraine move faster towards accession, either by pointing out reforms that need to be finalized, or by avoiding delaying one decision or another.. So, if the European Commission positively assesses the progress of reforms in Ukraine on 33 sections of the EU acquis, there is a chance that the European Council will decide to start negotiations with Ukraine in the fall of 2023. Therefore, we should take a closer look at what the European Commission reports are and why its assessments are important..

The report of the European Commission on the readiness of the candidate country to fulfill the obligations of an EU member is an important document in the accession process. Based on this document, the European Council unanimously decides on further steps in the accession procedure, including: opening negotiations, starting negotiations on a certain cluster of sections of EU law, completing accession negotiations. The report submitted to the Ukrainian side during the Ukraine-EU summit is the first assessment of the European Commission on the compliance of Ukrainian legislation with the EU acquis. Prior to this, the European Commission annually assessed Ukraine's progress exclusively in the implementation of the Association Agreement (AA), which also provided for the implementation of part of the EU acquis.

According to preliminary monitoring data of the Ukrainian Center for European Policy (UCEP), as of the end of 2022, the overall progress in the implementation of the Association Agreement by Ukraine is almost 55%, of which perfect implementation (when the obligation is fully implemented) is 30.6%. The Association Agreement, however, does not cover all sections of EU law, and therefore the progress of Ukraine's implementation of the AA is small against the background of more than 14 thousand legal acts and nine thousand decisions of the EU court. The average score of the European Commission is 2.16 (excluding the score for section 23 " Ukraine did not receive a score of " According to the analysis of the European Commission, Ukraine has a good level of training, which in numerical terms is equal to "

For comparison, countries that are in the negotiation process with the EU have a total score from the European Commission of at least 80. The European Commission evaluates the implementation of EU legislation in North Macedonia and Albania - countries with which accession negotiations began last summer - at the level of the total score of 97 and 84.5, respectively..

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In general, the assessment of the European Commission means, firstly, that Ukraine expects a huge layer of work on the implementation of EU legislation, which will require a high level of personnel and institutional viability. Secondly, in order to achieve full readiness for membership, Ukraine should not slow down the pace and quality of reforms - the European Commission annually monitors the approximation of legislation and may lower the assessment in case of rollbacks, which will slow down the process of joining the EU.

Now we should focus on section 23 " The European Commission promises to provide a conclusion on this area in the spring, first of all assessing the implementation of seven recommendations by Ukraine. Thanks to this, our country will be able to finalize the comments of the European Commission and show a good result of the reforms in the fall of 2023, when the EU leaders will decide on the possible opening of accession negotiations. Progress on the judiciary and fundamental reforms is key to opening negotiations as the Fundamental Reform Cluster (which also covers Sections 24 Justice, Freedom, Security, 5 Public Procurement, 18 Statistics, 32 Financial Control) opens. Until the candidate country meets the requirements of the European Commission in this area, negotiations on any of the sections of the EU acquis will not begin, even if the country reaches a high level of readiness for membership.

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So, by providing Ukraine with an assessment of the implementation of reforms this spring, the European Commission will help ensure that the opening of negotiations with the EU takes place this year, but whether this becomes a reality depends on Ukraine.. At present, the EU has not reported discussing some changes in the formal EU enlargement procedure, but it seems that the European Commission and the EU Council can help speed up this process where possible (remember the relatively quick decision of the EU to grant Ukraine the status of a candidate country).

Note that Kyiv is planning steps that could accelerate Ukraine's accession to the EU. The idea of \u200b\u200bself-screening is correct, because it will allow you to outline a detailed plan of tasks that need to be completed in each area.. Theoretically, if the Ukrainian authorities start working on the implementation of European norms even before the official start of accession negotiations, Ukraine will be able to go through the negotiation process faster. But now there is no detailed understanding for all sectors, what new obligations we will have to fulfill. There are only rough estimates of experts: for example, in the field of technical regulation, under the Association Agreement, we had an obligation to adopt 27 technical regulations (25 have already been implemented), and within the framework of all European legislation, we will have to adopt more than a hundred new regulations.

Another good idea is to develop an Action Plan for the integration of Ukraine into the EU internal market for 2023-2024. Such a plan should include measures that will help Ukraine to further integrate into the European market, given the devastation caused by the war.. At the same time, it is important not to include individual sectors in this plan due to their unwillingness to meet European requirements now, as well as due to the consequences of the war.. For example, in the EU, in the field of " This is done to ensure that the business operates on competitive terms.. Now Ukrainian business is operating in difficult conditions, and taking away state aid, given that investments are unlikely to come to us during the war, would be an unreasonable step.. Our team is finalizing a document by which it identified areas where such integration can be carried out, and also identified sectors where such integration is problematic. In our opinion, integration into the EU market is a long process, in fact the same as gaining membership.

With this in mind, we have proposed so-called quick wins in selected sectors that will help our country overcome the consequences of the war..

European Commission report on Ukraine's readiness for EU membership made it clear how much work we still need to do. It is positive that for Kyiv this document has become an indicator of further steps to bring legislation closer to the EU acquis. The process of joining the EU is a complex and bureaucratic procedure. This should be understood and not lose determination to qualitatively carry out the necessary reforms..

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