Ukraine, geo-politics: EU integration, Mar 2022

President Zelenskyi renews call for fast-track EU membership for Ukraine

(for the EIU)

In a video address to Swedish MPs on March 24th the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, again made the case for his country to be offered full EU membership.

Almost a month earlier, the president made a similar appeal to the European Parliament, calling for Ukraine’s case to be fast-tracked. Soon after he signed a formal membership application, Georgia and Moldova followed suit. At a meeting of EU leaders held at Versailles in France on March 10th, however, no formal commitment by the EU on Ukraine’s membership statement was made. Instead, the European Commission was tasked with assessing Ukraine’s application.

The chances of Ukraine’s rapid advance to full EU membership appear slim, therefore. This is mainly because of the size of the task involved, which involves the replication and implementation of the full range of political and economic regulations built up in the EU over decades, including on such key issues as market regulation and the operation of the rule of law.

In Ukraine’s case, however, where the mode of elite politics has traditionally weighed on living standards, the process itself would be useful, even if formal membership lay in the far distance. That is, even the award of candidate status would be more than symbolic, offering a set of concrete, incrementally achievable goals driving much-needed institutional change, the main beneficial outcome of which would be governance institutions favouring greater popular political and economic participation.

That said, Ukraine’s ability to make use of such an offer will depend on the outcome of the ongoing war and, in particular, how Russia emerges from it, since Russia’s attempt to prevent Ukraine joining the EU, rather than NATO, was at the forefront of its efforts in the run up to war in 2014-15.

Fast-track membership of the EU remains highly unlikely for Ukraine, and would perhaps miss the point and value for Ukraine of the membership process. Nevertheless, amid the deep and rapid transformation of the assumptions underlying the European political order over the past month, it is not out of the question that Ukraine could be offered candidate status. Inconceivable before Russia’s invasion of February 24th, this in itself could be highly valuable to Ukraine in any post-war phase of reconstruction and reform.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ukraine: Authorities commandeer major companies for the war effort, Nov 2022

In early November, under the auspices of martial law, the Ukrainian authorities commandeered privately held stakes in five prominent companies, handing responsibility for wartime management of the businesses to the Ministry of Defence. Of the five, significant shares in Ukrnafta (the country’s largest oil-producer) and in Ukrtatnafta (oil refining) were held by Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who heads the Private Group. For Zaporizhzhia’s Motor Sich, which makes aircraft engines, Vyacheslav Bohuslayev was the main shareholder. The vehicle producer, AvtoKrAz, was linked to Kostyantyn Zhevaho of the Finance and Credit group, while Zaporizhtransformator, which makes parts for electricity plants, was owned by Kostyantyn Hrihorishin. All of these figures may be described as “oligarchs”—that is, business leaders who, over a lengthy period, have been able to use their wealth and business networks to tilt political and economic rules and outcomes in their favour. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s
Read more

Dr David Dalton: Course syllabus proposal: Political economy of the Ukrainian oligarchy

The course I propose provides an overview of the modern Ukrainian oligarchy as the country’s dominant post-communist political economy institution. Starting from an outline of how the institution was formed from a developing relation between political elites and regional business networks in the 1990s, students will examine what the oligarchy is, how it operates, and how it has managed to reproduce itself across crises, despite the country’s perennially poor economic performance. The course is comprised of 3 lectures and seminars which introduce political economy and a subject, focusing on a comparison between neo-classical and institutional economics. It is followed by 7 lectures/ seminars on key empirical themes concerning the modern Ukrainian oligarchy, based on a book-length monograph of my PhD dissertation, The Ukrainian Oligarchy After the Euromaidan , as well as key readings on the political economy of modern Ukraine on which it draws. It will, however, include more of an extern
Read more

Ukraine: NBU governor resigns amid scandal, Oct 2022

On October 4th, Kyrylo Shevchenko, the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU, the central bank), announced his resignation, which was formalised by the finance committee of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) shortly after. Mr Shevchenko has been in the post since July 2020. Volodymyr Zelenskyi, the Ukrainian president, proposed Andriy Pishnyi, another career banker, to replace him, and this was confirmed by the Rada on October 7th. The consolidation and strengthening of the banking system in 2014-16 under the leadership of Valeriya Hontareva was one of the main policy achievements of the immediate post-Euromaidan era. Since then, however, as in many other areas of reform, there has been some back-tracking, with both Hontareva and her successor, Yakiv Smoliy, subjected to political pressure by vested business-political interests, raising concerns about the bank’s independence. In his resignation statement, Mr Shevchenko, 49, said that he was stepping down as NBU governor owing
Read more