Success Factors for the Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Agreement

Ukraine as a country has been going through major changes politically, socially and economically not only after the fall of the iron curtain, but especially since the change of power in 2014. The goal of this thesis is to analyse to what extent Ukraine has achieved the integration into the European Union’s association, or looking from the other side, how well the European Union’s efforts were successful to make Ukraine compatible to its own political system, to “Europeanise” it, without offering accession prospects. As a single aspect who is intended to serve as pars pro toto for the whole process, the fight against corruption was chosen as the object of analysis. The theoretical background are the theories of Sandra Lavenex, Frank Schimmelfennig and several others concerning the external governance of the European Union. After establishing an overview of the theoretical background, i.e. literature concerning the external governance of the European Union and its fight against corruption, follows the methodology with the research design and subsequently, some insight into the general content, articles and implications of the Association Agreement and the conditions of the Deep Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA). Following upon that, the study will analyse to which extent the reforms of abovesaid agreement have been implemented. since 2016, the European Union annually publishes a so-called Joint Staff Working Document – Association Implementation Report on Ukraine. These reports and their commentary concerning the anti-corruption efforts of Ukraine will be presented, put into perspective, challenged and analysed. The comparison between anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine and Georgia, and why they succeeded or failed is supposed to give insights into the functioning of the Ukrainian state and the general effectivity of the European Union’s external governance. This method of comparison is chosen, because the Association Agreement itself, and no other document known to this author, sets a specific goal to the fight against corruption. Quite the contrary, the Association Agreement is rather undefined. Therefore, in order to evaluate whether the implementation is successful, in absence of a defined goal, a comparative look at the outcomes in successful Georgia and struggling Ukraine seems advisable. As the example of Georgia shows what, is theoretically possible in the timeframe and the framework of the Association Agreement but was not successfully accomplished in Ukraine. As in the case of Ukraine, the European Union’s external governance was not a success so far. Lacking sufficient domestic support to force the resistant incumbent elites to effectively implement not only hollow institutions but functioning ones, the fight against corruption has not been fruitful in Ukraine. Looking at Georgia, where Börzel and van Huellen make the argument that civil society’s pressure was the main factor for successful implementation, we see, that external governance alone is not sufficient to facilitate change. The European Union’s external governance shows little effectiveness so far in Ukraine, even less efficiency. Therefore, rethinking this tool is recommended as well as the European Union’s engagement in Ukraine in general.