EU calls for more Ukraine anti-corruption and reform efforts

Requirements that civil society workers submit their tax declarations alongside state workers are a problem that needs to be resolved by the Ukraine-EU summit scheduled for July 13, EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn told journalists during his visit to Kyiv on June 1. “It’s not enough to merely create (anti-corruption) agencies, but we must reach the point that they’re effectively fulfilling their responsibilities,” said Hahn, who mentioned that he discussed the matter with Ukrainian President Poroshenko that day, as reported by the eurointegration.com.ua news site.

Ukraine has a window of about a year to conduct any remaining large-scale structural reforms that could be unpopular, Hahn told journalists during the same visit. “Afterwards, we will enter a period in which attitudes form in the pre-election process, which doesn’t support reforms in general,” he said. The large-scale reforms include modernizing the pension system, modernizing state medicine, launching a farmland market, and privatizing state enterprises. Ukraine’s presidential election are expected to be in March 2019 and the parliamentary vote should be in October that year.

Zenon Zawada: The pattern is familiar: EU requires reforms, Ukraine reluctantly adopts them with safeguards protecting entrenched interests, and then the EU returns to improve the lackluster reforms, or demand more. These reforms are accomplished with the carrot-on-a-stick approach, with loans being the incentive. And this is the way it will have to work with corruption-plagued, post-Soviet states transitioning into the global order. We expect Poroshenko will respond to Hahn’s concerns, largely because he has little choice.

As for the likelihood of the large-scale reforms, pensions are the most sensitive area that the president will be especially careful with, given that elderly citizens are the most reliable voters. We expect legislation that will satisfy most EU requirements without drawing the rage of that crucial electorate. The farmland market is another sensitive area where populists will fight tooth-and-nail. We believe such legislation has a better-than-even chance of getting adopted, but the launch of a fully functioning market will take years.