Progress Report 4

Support to the Integration of Ukraine in the Trans-European Transport Network TEN-T
4th Progress Report
(ENPI) covering the eastern borders of the EU and is designed to facilitate economic and social
development in the border regions, but in some cases also including development of border
infrastructure. If funding is required to undertake these priority projects an approach to the ENPI CBC
Programme should be considered.
The Terms of Reference requested recommendations on and the establishment of priorities for transborder
collaboration. This is a two dimensional issue - establishment of an institutional framework to
undertake the proposed collaboration; and priority issues on which to then collaborate. The former is
considered to be the most difficult. In Ukraine, cooperation between the various border organisations
is a potential problem, in common with most of the CIS. Each organisation tends to be defensive of
their role of ‘protecting the nation’, thus the inability so far to reduce the number of agencies present at
the border. An additional complication is that the various agencies come under different Ministries and
the Border Guard is a military unit, thus it is recognised that interagency communication and
cooperation is potentially quite difficult.
A good example of this lack of effective collaboration is the absence of any common coordinated
national border development programme. As indicated, there are several border agency-related lists of
projects, plus other lists related to the 2012 Championships and others indicated in various
government plans. There is as yet no common comprehensive border development programmes
agreed to by all the relevant Ministries both in terms of priorities and funding.
Thus, it can be seen that the first problem in trans-border collaboration is institutional. Who can
represent Ukraine in any trans-border collaboration discussions with parties in the neighbouring EU
states? Trans-border collaboration discussions will need to be conducted at a higher strategic level,
such as ensuring that developments undertaken on one side are balanced with changes on the other
to the common benefit of stakeholders using that border link. In order to undertake trans-border
collaboration it will be necessary to develop some form of institutional framework, preferably with some
legal status. This could be in the form of an International Trans-border Collaboration Committee
involving all the key stakeholders. The requirement is to establish a national committee which can then
communicate with neighbouring EU countries based on a common national strategy. The membership
should consist of senior operational personnel who have experience of border operations, rather than
being represented by foreign relations departments. This is because the primary function of the
Committee would be to discuss practical issues, rather than negotiate diplomatic linkages and
agreements.
Having established the principle of an institutional framework, then the next key issue is what forms of
trans-border collaboration are required? The first area of collaboration is on cross-border
development. Modern border planning is about coordinated planning development of both sides of the
border in parallel, rather than being viewed as two totally separate programmes. There is little
evidence of coordinated border development between the EU and Ukraine and vice versa.
Another priority area that the Committee could collaborate with neighbours is to try to resolve the core
problems of the existing cross-border trade and x-raying. This type of issue is not border crossing
specific in that it represents a common problem, even though it may manifest itself differently at
individual posts. Thus, the existing local discussions between personnel either side of the problem
cannot resolve the problem, as it is more of a ‘high level’ strategic level issue. The current situation
with its delays and costs cannot continue for ever and therefore some effective cross-border
collaboration is required in order to address what are joint problems.
It should be recognised that cross-border collaboration, like trade facilitation, is notoriously difficult to
both establish and generate positive results in the short term. However, collaboration on border
development and resolution of the cross border trade and x raying problems would demonstrate that
such an institutional mechanism can generate positive results to the benefit of stakeholders.
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