"In context of EU standards, we are moving at speed of light," said Chentsov, representative of Ukraine in EU
According to Vsevolod Chentsov, the representative of Ukraine to the EU, the European integration of Ukraine by EU standards is taking place at an extraordinary speed.
He stated this in an interview with Ukrainian Radio, Censor.NET reports.
In response to a question about when Ukraine will be able to implement all the recommendations of the European Commission, Chentsov reminded that the European Commission usually prepares a large, comprehensive report on the state of affairs in the field of enlargement every year. That is, it is an analysis of the progress of each candidate state in achieving the relevant criteria — either to start negotiations or to obtain candidate status. As a rule, the beginning of negotiations is already a well-announced stage of relations between the candidate state and the EU. This is preceded by many stages, and additional control can be carried out at each stage.
"Ukraine is moving extremely fast. We submitted the application at the end of February 2022, received the candidate status in a few months, and at the end of this year we are expecting the start of negotiations. In the context of EU standards, we are moving at the speed of light. An interim oral assessment is not provided for by the rules of the European Union. Decision to take such a step was decided with one goal — so that everyone clearly understands where we are in the process of implementing the recommendations, so that it will be easier for us to reach the finish line and ensure 100% progress in the context of the big autumn report," he said.
He added that the fact that Ukraine fulfilled only two criteria out of seven should not cause disappointment or dissatisfaction - on the contrary, it gave a clear understanding of what should be done to move to the next stage. "We, society, need these things first of all - the reform of the Constitutional Court, the strengthening of anti-corruption bodies, the issue of money laundering, oligarchic legislation. All these things have been on our agenda for a long time, and we have been working on some areas for more than a year," Chentsov believes.
He also spoke about what the accession negotiations entail.
"First of all, we are not starting the integration process from scratch. We have an Association Agreement, which includes the adaptation of our legislation to EU legislation. Even before signing this Agreement in 2014, we have already adapted a significant part of the legislation, and now it will be much easier for us to complete this adaptation. That is, the European Commission should conduct a screening of our legislation, understand where we are at the beginning of the negotiations, and define tasks for each of the 35 chapters," Chentsov said.
However, he did not assume. what will be the sequence of reforms.
"It would be logical to start with the sections where the level of our adaptation is the highest. For example, energy — we have done a lot here in connection with the fact that Ukraine has been a member of the Energy Community since 2011. And the logic of this organization is precisely that , to prepare member states for EU membership by adapting legislation in this separate sector. It is very important for Ukraine and for the Balkan countries that are members of this community," Chentsov said.
Therefore, according to him, the negotiation process can be seen as a dynamic adaptation and integration of Ukraine into the internal European market. There is no need to wait for a big explosion of membership decisions to take advantage of the internal market.
"Therefore, in the process of 100% adaptation in one or another sector of our legislation, we must gain access to the market. I would like to draw attention to the fact that today there is a temporary decision to remove all trade restrictions for Ukrainian products. This was adopted in connection with the aggressive war Russia against Ukraine to help us balance trade. So, despite the war, trade with the European Union is growing, but we would like to reach similar solutions in other sectors in order to fully integrate into the EU internal market," he summarized.
