These are the general conclusion made by Iryna Shvets, Coordinator of the civic monitoring of implementation of the Association Agenda between Ukraine and the EU. Ms. Shvets stated that experts recruited in the framework of the project have analyzed the Euro-integration progress of Ukraine in the sphere of democracy and human rights in the ten following areas: Constitutional reform in Ukraine; The functioning of local government in Ukraine; Reforming public administration system; Reforming the judiciary and the judicial system; Ensuring respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; The freedom of expression and information; Ensuring freedom of expression, assembly and association; Ensuring the rights of persons belonging to national; Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research; Combating corruption.
Monitoring results show that priorities of the “Political dialogue” section were partially fulfilled, however without any preliminary plan how to do it. Unfortunately we cannot name any priority where Ukraine’s progresses were significant. Alongside positive tendencies to react on urgent matters which Ukraine has faced and which are often quoted by the EU, the state’s government continues to take decisions which contradict the implementation of European standards.
A striking example for this kind of situation is the Constitutional reform in Ukraine, as while the President is building up a Constitutional Assembly, every month dozens of decrees are being signed by the Head of State, while being legally beyond the President’s constitutional powers.
A similar tendency can be observed in the area of the reform of the the judiciary. On the one hand, the draft law “On amending the Law of Ukraine “On judicial system and the status of judges”” can be seen as a positive step. On the other hand, the political influence over courts is still ongoing: authorities effectively implement the mechanism of choosing the “right” judges and punishing those who are not loyal to them. Promotion to the courts of higher level is not based on any competition and the establishment of such competition it is not even foreseen by the law.
More positive situation may be observed in the area of freedom of assembly. Some progresses in the development of th draft law “On freedom of assembly” have been observed. The working group created under the Profile Committee of Verkhovna Rada and which, among other group members, includes people representing Civil Society Organizations, took into account most of the recommendations of the Venice commission. Some progress can also be observed in the sphere of implementing decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. This is especially obvious in the case of the Law of Ukraine “On state’s guarantees on courts decisions implementation” adopted recently (5 June, 2012).
An interesting tendency has been observed in the framework of the priorities implementation concerning strengthening of local government in Ukraine. Indeed, the Ministry for Regional Development and Building of Ukraine presented in April, 2012 a new Concept for local government reform and territorial organization of the governance. This is the most visible success of the government in recent years. However, the document which hasn’t run into force yet, is actually a copy of the “Concept of local self-government reform” adopted in 2009. A similar “return to the past” can also observed in the election sphere, since the next Parliamentary elections will be conducted according to mixed-member proportional representation system used in 1998 and 2002.
According to Vadym Triukhan, an expert in European integration, such stagnation in EU-Ukraine relations can be explained by three main reasons. First, is the lack of political willingness in the Ukrainian government to aim in practical terms towards the state’s integration into the EU. “We want to integrate the country to the European Union, however we do nothing inside the country, no internal reforms in accordance with the European standards”, - resumes the expert. The second problem is a lack of political willingness in the European Union, as Ukraine does not receive all the necessary instruments for its quick integration. The last reason is a lack of an institution (as a coordinating body), which would be in charge of Euro-integration issues.
An interim report on the Association Agenda monitoring results.pdf
The Monitoring is conducted within the EU-funded project entitled “Enhanced civic engagement with reforms in Ukraine in the framework of European Neighbourhood Policy”.