EU-Ukraine association project launched in Kyiv

On May 19 of 2016 a new EU funded Project Association4U is launched in Ukraine. The Project will provide support to the Government of Ukraine (GoU) in mastering the process of the Association Agreement (AA) implementation, by among others, providing significant expert support to legal approximation, training civil servants, coordination of AA-related policy making and public communications.

«EU-Ukraine Association is a unique Agreement by its scope and scale. Measured by the commitments from the Ukrainian side and scrutiny by the EU competent bodies, it shares the features of an accession process for a candidate country. It thus requires an immense amount of sincere political will, outright commitment and administrative and financial resources by all stakeholders», - said the EU Ambassador to Ukraine, H.E. Jan Tombinski, opening the public launch event.

Vice-Prime-Minister of Ukraine on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Mrs. Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze underlined the paramount importance of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, a driving engine for economic development of the country and improvement of living standards.

CMU Deputy Minister – Director of the Governmental Office for European Integration (GOEI) Mrs. Natalia Hnydiuk presented the AA Reform Agenda progress and stressed that the process requires well-coordinated actions of Ministries and Agencies implementing AA, the Ukrainian Parliament, business associations, civic society and other stakeholders. Ukraine's commitments under AA require the approximation of more than 350 EU legal acts, of which 50% should be implemented by year 2017. Such plan presents a huge volume of work. According to the 2015 AA implementation Report of the GOEI, in the past year the CMU adopted 37 Regulations approving 150 implementation plans for 219 EU legal acts.

During panel discussions, participants of the event learned about the association and accession experience of other countries from: the Head of EU Support Group to Ukraine Mr. Peter Wagner; former Secretary of the Poland-EU Association Committee and General Counsellor of the MFA of Poland Mr. Marek Tabor; Professor of Law at Westminster University and Expert of the Project ‘Association4U’ Prof. Adam Lazowski. Representative of the GFA Consortium, Director of the Project, Mrs. Karin Roelke, the Project Team Leader Dr Janos Zakonyi and his team presented their vision of the project implementation.

Contact information: Key Expert on Communications of the EU Project ‘Association4U’ Mrs. Liudmyla Kosar (+38 050 5479487) or Liudmyla.Kosar@gfa-group.de.

Background information: We are the EU Project "Support to the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement", with its short name 'Association4U', meaning 'Association for Ukraine and for you'. The Project is funded by the EU and is being implemented together with its key beneficiary, Government Office for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and the Line Ministries, involved in the AA Implementation. The main objective of the Project is to enhance the capacities and performance of the Ukraine’s governmental institutions to comprehensively implement their commitments within the Association Agreement.

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