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Eastern dimension and the Balkans / Working Paper

The new enhanced agreement between the European Union and Ukraine: Will it further democratic consolidation?

23/06/2008 By Natalia Shapovalova

JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images

In March 2007 negotiations for a New Enhanced Agreement (NEA) began between the European Union and Ukraine. The EU-Ukraine Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which was signed in 1994, expired in 2008.

The New Enhanced Agreement will be a comprehensive and cross-pillar agreement introducing a contractual basis for integration, convergence and cooperation in various fields such as political reforms, rule of law, human rights, border management, migration, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and free trade between Ukraine and the EU.

But will this new agreement be sufficient to assist Ukraine’s faltering process of democratic consolidation? Will the notion of an “enhanced” agreement serve as a new model for those states still denied a membership perspective? This paper of Natalia Shapovalova outlines the advances to be made under the NEA but argues that the answer to both these questions is likely to be negative.

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Keywords

Democratisation Eastern Europe and Russia EU EU Foreign Policy European Neighbourhood Policy European Union Ukraine

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Bio author: Natalia Shapovalova

Natalia Shapovalova is a researcher in the International Centre for Policy Studies in Kyiv and a visiting fellow with the Democratisation Programme at FRIDE.