Ukraine and the Association Agreement: Implementation Monitoring July 1 — November 1, 2016

The Association Agreement provides that Ukraine is obliged to implement approximately 350 EU legal acts (directives, regulations, decisions) by 2025.

Under the terms defined in the Agreement for the period of July 1, 2016 – November 1, 2016, Ukraine had to adapt 44 EU legal acts in the sectors of energy, environment, public health, social policy, company law, taxation, and public procurement, most of which belonged to the sectors of energy (13) and environment (15).

The conducted assessment indicates a lack of significant progress in the implementation of commitments under the Association Agreement, as only 8 of the 44 commitments have been implemented (the Ukrainian legislation has been approximated with the EU requirements).

As in the previous report, the spheres of public procurement and energy have become most successful, demonstrating systematic work aimed at the approximation of the Ukrainian legislation to the EU law. In other areas, implementation of the European integration commitments is on different levels – from the legislation regulating the collection of excise duty, where only several technical amendments to the legislation are to be made to fully implement the EU requirements, to the regulation in the sphere of environment, where approximation is progressing quite slowly.

The Parliament’s delay in the consideration and adoption of the relevant laws, slow and bureaucratic procedure of approving the drafts of legal acts by the Cabinet of Ministers, as well as poor ability of the personnel of the governmental agencies to develop high-quality drafts are the biggest obstacles to a timely approximation of the Ukrainian laws to the EU standards.