Ukraine Gets Ready for Europe

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Executive Summary

Despite the unprecedented challenge of moving toward EU membership while warding off Russia’s full-scale aggression, Ukraine continues to demonstrate rapid progress on its EU accession path. Official accession negotiations between Ukraine and the EU began in June 2024, and in November 2024, the parties finalized a bilateral screening of Ukraine’s legislative and institutional compliance under the first negotiation cluster—the Fundamentals. This cluster, according to its special status in the EU’s renewed enlargement methodology, opens first and closes last. In March 2025, Ukraine and the EU also completed the screening of Ukraine’s compliance under cluster 2—the Internal Market. In April 2025, the parties finalized the screening of cluster 6—External Relations.

As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has reiterated on multiple occasions, there is strong political will in Brussels to accelerate Ukraine’s EU integration progress. This is especially timely given the growing geopolitical pressure on Ukraine’s accession process and continued uncertainty over the future of US military aid, which leaves the EU as the main actor on which Ukraine can rely for its security.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos stated earlier this year that she hopes to open as many as three clusters of Ukraine’s accession negotiations—starting with Fundamentals—by the end of Poland’s presidency in June 2025, and the remaining three during Denmark’s presidency by December 2025. Kos also emphasized at the 2025 Munich Security Conference—where participants discussed security as “the most decisive element” of the enlargement process and recognized the role of Ukrainian accession in providing a strong security guarantee—that the EU is already “moving two to three times faster” than in previous years on Ukraine’s EU integration. In a recent statement to the European Parliament, von der Leyen echoed Kos by noting: “We are working hard with Ukraine to open the first cluster of accession talks, and to open all clusters in 2025. Ukraine joining our Union is the greatest guarantee of a just and lasting peace.”

This ambitious plan alone is a major breakthrough given the technical complexity of the process, the constraints imposed by martial law in Ukraine, and Hungary’s recurrent veto on Ukraine’s accession, which Kyiv and Brussels are working relentlessly to overcome. According to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas, the EU is working on alternative plans if unanimity in the Council cannot be achieved.

Against this complex backdrop, it is as crucial as ever for Ukraine to maintain momentum and demonstrate that it is moving forward expeditiously with the necessary reforms in line with the EU acquis (body of laws). This, in turn, will require sufficient technical capacities and the sustained political independence of Ukrainian government institutions responsible for the implementation of the accession criteria. Crucially, institutional capacity serves dual roles within Ukraine’s EU integration: It is a tool for Ukraine’s accession as well as a criterion against which Ukraine’s progress is evaluated. The greater the administrative capacity of institutions implementing the accession criteria, the greater Ukraine’s ability to swiftly bring legislation into compliance with the EU acquis. At the same time, institutional capacities are reflected throughout the accession process in benchmarks that, if not reached, can impede the pace of negotiations.

Conditionalities and benchmarks put forward by international partners have driven Ukraine’sphenomenal track record of implementing complex democratic reforms over the decade since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. During the accession negotiation process,recommendations and other monitoring instruments the EU uses could serve as powerful tools to boost the institutional capacities of Ukraine’s system of public administration. Significantly, existing EU instruments can be used to ensure a stronger focus on public administration reform. In particular, the negotiation framework for Ukraine already sets adequate sectoral administrative capacities as prerequisites for opening and closing each chapter. This report suggests that the EU should leverage these prerequisites to mainstream public administration reform within Ukraine’s accession process.

Ahead of the upcoming transition from the Polish to the Danish presidencies of the Council of the EU, this report presents key assessments—including by Ukraine’s leading civil society organizations—of the state of Ukrainian government institutions and of critical vulnerabilities for the EU accession negotiations. It presents an overview of the achievements of and remaining challenges to public administration reform in Ukraine and offers recommendations on how to address these challenges through EU accession instruments. The paper further assesses the role of Ukraine’s vibrant civil society in advancing European integration and suggests strategies to ensure that it is meaningfully embedded in negotiations. It also calls for significantly stronger donor support for civil society’s engagement in the accession process.

The report suggests that furthering Ukraine’s public administration reform will require informed, inclusive, and well-coordinated efforts from key stakeholders.

• The EU should mainstream Ukraine’s public administration reform and monitor the country’s institutional capacity across all negotiation chapters, following the example of the mainstreaming of Ukraine’s anti-corruption indicators. The current negotiating framework can make the opening of negotiations on individual chapters of the Fundamentals cluster contingent upon meeting institutional capacity conditionalities.
• The Ukrainian government should acknowledge the centrality of public administration reform to the country’s development prospects, particularly its EU accession, and accelerate reform implementation. It should also communicate these efforts to Ukrainian society, thereby boosting citizens’ support for these critical transformations.
• Civil society should continue to participate in sectoral negotiation working groups, where they can provide expertise and closely monitor government efforts at all stages of the accession process.
• Finally, technical assistance donors should boost their support for Ukrainian civil society organizations engaged in the accession process and ensure their sustainability and uninterrupted operation.

The critical importance of public administration reform for the overall quality and speed of Ukraine’s accession process calls for a considerably stronger focus on this reform area from international partners and the EU in particular. Setting imterim benchmarks may not be the most effective approach, as it is likely to delay progress on accession by complicating an already burdensome process with additional indicators. It is essential, however, that European partners enhance their focus on Ukraine’s institutional issues when assessing each of the negotiation chapters across all clusters.