Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers adopted the 2012 plan of immediate measures concerning the country’s integration to the European Union. The document deals with internal reform issues (the likes of gas transporting system modernization, institutional reform in Ukraine, and hosting EURO 2012), as well as questions of deepening Ukraine-EU ties: visa liberalization, cooperation with EU police and justice offices, expanding trade cooperation, etc.

Besides the listed domestic reforms, the document stipulates measures to enhance regional development of the country, restructuring of the national gas managing company Naftogaz, as well as preparations to the Association Agreement implementation.

Ukraine also plans to enhance cooperation with the EU in the areas of nuclear safety, research and technology, defense, space exploration. Additionally, the new document sets the agenda for creating the common airspace with the EU. According to the plan, Ukraine intends to join the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity.

Ukraine and the EU share a 1,391 kilometer long border and have established close cooperation in a number of areas. Ukraine is EU’s strategic gas transit partner. Its gas transporting system services 70% of the Russian gas export to Europe. The EU is one of Ukraine’s key trade partners with the trade volume in 2011 constituting USD 44 billion and demonstrating a 36% growth.

European integration has been a long-term foreign policy goal for Ukraine. The country began negotiations with the EU in 1999. Various officials of the EU member states, including Czech Republic, Finland, and Lithuania, backed Ukraine’s European ambition.
By 2007 the sides agreed to eventually sign the Association Agreement. After 21 rounds of negotiations over the Association Agreement, Ukraine and the EU finalized the negotiating process on December 19, 2011.

The Association Agreement will regulate political cooperation of the partners, as well as introduce the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between Ukraine and the EU. Initialing of the political and, partly, economical sections of the document took place in Brussels on March 30, 2012.

Currently the sides are working on the technical aspects of the document preparation for signing and further ratification. Meanwhile, the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych stated that Ukraine perceived the Association Agreement as comprehensive program of reforms.

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Ukraine demands the European Energy Community investigate the actions of Slovenia in support of the Russian South Stream project. Such was the appeal of the Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine Yuriy Boyko to the Director of the Energy Community Secretariat Slavtcho Neykov, according to Ekonomicheskie Izvestia.

On February 27, 2012, Slovenia negotiated the parameters of the part of South Stream that would run through its territory. This provoked Ukraine to plea to the European Energy Community (EEC), which both Ukraine and Slovenia are members of, to examine whether Slovenia’s actions adhere to the principles of the organization.

Yuriy Boyko draws attention of Slavtcho Neykov to the fact that modernization of Ukrainian gas transporting system is in the EU’s best interests, while South Stream is a political project rather than economical. He reminded that such was the position of the European Commissioner for Energy Guenther Oettinger. Previously, Ukraine suggested entitling modernization of its gas transporting system as a priority project for Europe.

Therefore, EEC, pursuing establishment of a common regulatory framework for member energy markets through extending EU standards across their territories, should take action to protect the interests of its member-states.

Willing to introduce unified rules in energy sector management, Ukraine joined the Energy Community treaty in 2011. The Ukrainian minister insists that while his country did its best to guarantee European energy security, Europe did not reciprocate.

Moreover, energy expert Volodymyr Saprykin reckons that South Stream construction goes against the so-called Third Energy Package – a collection of legislative documents of the EU that concern Union’s internal gas and electricity market. The document bans energy companies from combining the functions of supply, sale, and transportation of gas. To comply with this regulation Ukraine is currently restructuring its own gas managing company – the state-owned Naftogaz.

At the moment, Russia is building South Stream gas transporting pipeline, set to run through the territories of Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Serbia, and Slovenia. The route will allow transporting of Russian gas to European countries bypassing Ukrainian transit facilities that are now accountable for 70 percent of Russian gas supply to Europe.

Image Courtesy of  Vasily Smirnov / Shutterstock.com

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