Policy Forum on Ukraine

The EastWest Institute's Policy Forum on Ukraine is a series of informal meetings between selected Ukrainian and EU representatives to discuss the progress and challenges of reforms in Ukraine, and to identify ways to improve EU-Ukraine relations. The meetings are held twice a year in respective EU capitals, several months prior to a particular member state taking over the EU presidency.

The main goal of this Forum is to help re-enforce domestic reform in Ukraine and enhance EU-Ukraine relations. The EWI Policy Forum on Ukraine serves to:

1. promote Ukraine and knowledge about Ukraine in the EU;

2. enhance better understanding in the EU of Ukraine's transition process, its achievements and challenges;

3. assist in efficiently focusing EU policies towards Ukraine;

4. help Ukraine to design its next steps vis-à-vis the EU;

5. contribute to the development of a critical mass of mutually beneficial EU-Ukraine contacts at various levels; and

6. expose Ukrainian participants to European principles, values and approaches, hold them accountable for progress in domestic reform, and in this way increase pro-reform pressure on Ukraine.

The EastWest Institute's Policy Forum on Ukraine is chaired by H.E. Mr. Martti Ahtisaari, Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the EastWest Institute and former President of Finland. The Policy Forum brings together select officials from the European Commission and Ukrainian government, ambassadors of EU member states in Brussels, members of the European Parliament and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and representatives of major Ukrainian and Brussels-based think-tanks. Select local/regional government officials, private sector leaders, and (when and if necessary) European and Ukrainian media representatives are invited as well.

The first meeting of the EastWest Institute's Policy Forum on Ukraine was held in Brussels on November 23, 1999. Its main purpose was to update EU audiences on the latest developments in Ukraine and nearby prospects of its domestic transformation and foreign policy in view of the November 1999 presidential elections. The next meeting of the Policy Forum will take place in Brussels on May 22, 2000. This meeting will elaborate on the progress of political and economic reforms in Ukraine over the past several months and the correspondence of this progress to the development of Ukraine's relations with the European Union in light of the EU Common Strategy on Ukraine. The third meeting is scheduled for late September - beginning of October 2000 in Stockholm, Sweden.

European Union - Ukraine Study

This is a comprehensive study launched by the EastWest Institute during the first part of 1999, which also will serve as a contribution to the work on EU Common Strategy on Ukraine, which the EU plans to adopt during 1999.

The European Commission attaches fundamental importance to its partnership with Ukraine and likewise Ukraine gives the foremost priority to its relations with the EU, declaring full membership in the EU as its strategic goal. Given this crucial relationship on the one hand, and a noted degree of mutual misunderstanding on the other, the study aims to analyze the achievements and challenges of this relationship to date (including political relations, trade and economic cooperation, the EU's financial and technical assistance to Ukraine, cooperation in justice and home affairs, the approximation of Ukrainian legislation, and the impact of EU eastward enlargement), and to make specific suggestions for its development and assess its future prospects. It is hoped that the study will

a) facilitate greater understanding between the EU and Ukraine;
b) help the EU to further crystallize its policy towards Ukraine and thereby modestly contribute to the current deliberations on the EU's Common Strategy on Ukraine, which is prepared in accordance with the decision of the European Council in December 1998 in Vienna; and
c) support the European vocation of Ukraine and help the country to design its next steps to bring itself closer to the EU.

The study includes analysis and evaluation of all existing documents pertaining to the EU-Ukraine relations and cooperation, and a set of informal interviews with EU officials in Brussels supervising relations with Ukraine, the Delegation of the European Commission in Kyiv, embassies of key EU member states and Ukrainian officials responsible for Ukraine's relations with the EU and NGO, academic and private sector representatives.

The project aims at presenting a series of concrete proposals for EU and Ukrainian policymakers.

For further information, please contact Serhiy Maksymenko, Director of EWI Kyiv Centre

Publications

Ukraine's New Reform Momentum: Achievements and Challenges, Roundtable Report - Second Policy Forum on Ukraine, Brussels, May 2000.

Ukraine After the Elections: Perspectives on European Integration, Roundtable Report - Policy Forum on Ukraine, Brussels, November 1999.

The European Union and Ukraine: Consolidating Constituencies for Integration, Conference Report, Kyiv, October 1999.

The European Union and Ukraine: The Need for a New Vision, Policy Paper, Kyiv, July 1999.

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