This brochure is a result of the research project “Lowering the Bar? Compliance Negotiations and the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement”. The project was funded by the Research Council of Norway from 2021-2024.1 Developed prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the idea behind this project has been to explore how the EU and Ukraine put into effect the Association Agreement (AA). Our particular interest has been to explore how the partners deal with situations in which Ukraine has difficulties in fulfilling demanding AA obligations. This idea has remained relevant amidst Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and insights into EUUkraine compliance negotiations undoubtedly have the potential to inform the partners’ strategies in the accession context.
Nonetheless, particularly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the unique challenges it poses to the EU’s values and security pushed us to take a more holistic approach to EU-Ukraine relations. The EU’s decision to grant Ukraine, as well as Moldova and Georgia EU candidate country status reflects the EU’s engagement in the geopolitical competition with Russia over Europe’s political, security and economic order. At the same time, the reforms that Ukraine has implemented as an associated country and will continue to implement as an EU accession candidate contribute to its ability to withstand Russia’s aggression. To what extent have the EU and Ukraine succeeded in building the ship while it sails through the stormy seas of Russian aggression and uncertainty? How far away is Ukraine from its goal of EU membership? Is there a risk that a lengthy and cumbersome accession process may undermine Ukrainians’ support for EU accession? All these (and many more) questions are addressed in our edited book “Ukraine’s Thorny Path to the EU. From ‘Integration without Membership’ to ‘Integration through War’”, published with Palgrave Macmillan in December 2024. Importantly, the book includes many contributions by Ukrainian authors, among others from our Lviv-based project partners Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) and the NGO “Environment-People-Law” (EPL) and guest contributors.
The idea for this brochure emerged in conversations with some of the authors and representatives of our third institutional project partner, the NGO “Foreign Policy Council ‘Ukrainian Prism’”, most importantly Nadia Bureiko. All of them did not only continue their professional activities amidst the war but did their best to contribute to Ukraine’s resilience through volunteering, internationalisation and advocacy activities, and policy advice. The aim of this publication is thus two-fold. First, it seeks to offer the reader a first-hand insight into how the war has changed professional activities of Ukrainian academics and civil society. Second, it highlights Ukrainian professionals’ perspectives on the intertwined topics of Ukraine’s resilience building, EU accession, and reconstruction – with the war as a background.
Building and expanding Ukraine’s resilience
Resilience building has been an essential topic since the start of Russia’s aggression in 2014 but has accelerated during the full-scale invasion.
Olga Chyzhova and Hennadiy Maksak tell how the war pushed the Ukrainian think tank “Ukrainian Prism” to reconsider the organisation’s mission and change the scope of its activities. Amidst the war, the think tankers have combined several activity “tracks”: as humanitarian workers, educators and international awareness-raising campaigners. The organisation’s Brussels office, opened during the war, is central to Ukrainian civil society’s outreach to EU institutions, member states’ representations and the public. Also representing “Ukrainian Prism”, Sergiy Gerasymchuk writes on Ukraine’s civil society during the war, its assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine and the evolution of the NGO – donor – state relations.
He points specifically to the importance of shifting from ad-hoc initiatives to enduring programmes based on local expertise and countering donation fatigue.
The interview with Halyna Protsyk, a deputy vice rector and lecturer at the UCU, focuses on her experiences of sustaining the resilience of a higher education institution amidst the war. Like “Ukrainian Prism”, the UCU took very concrete steps to withstand the first months of the invasion, including volunteering, creating conditions for helping others, and taking care of internally displaced people. As the urgency of such help decreased, the university shifted to more long-term, transformational measures, including strategic internationalisation and measures to accelerate Ukraine’s integration into the European Higher Education Area.
The three contributions show that resilience building is closely connected to Ukraine’s European integration, the topic covered in more depth by the next two articles.
Making progress on the path to the EU
As already mentioned, Ukraine’s accession to the EU is often discussed in terms of its geopolitical significance. However, the long and technical process involves a number of challenges below the international level. Nataliya Haletska, lecturer at the UCU, focuses on important agents of Ukraine’s democracy and European integration that have received less attention to date – regional institutions. Among those, regional councils are self-government bodies, elected by Ukrainian citizens, that develop and approve of regional development programmes and regional budgets, and control their implementation. Based on her experience as a member of the Lviv Regional Council, Haletska notes that, amidst the war, the Council faces greater constraints from the Regional Military Administration. At the same time, she refers to specialised development institutions as an example of successful cooperation between the local self-government bodies and military administrations, stressing their potential for bottom-up European integration.
Olga Melen-Zabramna, head of the legal department of EPL, discusses Ukraine’s European integration in the environmental domain. She argues that both to improve the state of Ukraine’s integration with the EU and counter the ecological consequences of the war, the government needs to speed up environmental reforms, also in cooperation with civil society.
The latter contribution in particular shows the close connection between Ukraine’s path to the EU and the reconstruction of the country. The last two contributions in the brochure bear witness to this.
Creating the basis for reconstruction
Ganna Kharlamova and Andriy Stavytskyy, professors at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, engage with the topic of Ukraine’s reconstruction. They call on Ukraine “to think about its economic future after the war” already now and point to Ukraine’s integration into the EU’s economy as an important engine of reconstruction.
Yelyzaveta Aleksyeyeva, senior lawyer at EPL, urges the Ukrainian government to strike a fair balance between wartime security concerns and access to environmental information. She reiterates the role of Ukrainian NGOs in persuading the government to alleviate some of the restrictions introduced in the early days of the invasion to avoid a negative impact on environmental democracy. This is particularly important with a view to the country’s reconstruction and EU integration.
Learning from Ukraine’s experience
In sum, the project demonstrates the diversity of perspectives and experiences of Ukrainian academics and think tankers and sheds light on the tightly intertwined work on resilience, European integration, and reconstruction ongoing in Ukraine amidst the war. Ukraine’s and Ukrainians’ wartime experiences are thus of high value for everyone interested in crisis response, resilience, reconstruction and European integration, as well as the relations between the government, civil society and international donors.