Europeanization and Democratization - CIRES

244
Moreover, there are significant differences in the attitude of the ENP countries towards the
EU. This is particularly true for Ukraine. In fact, even before the “Orange revolution”
Ukraine had really stressed its desire to develop a closer relation with the EU. In fact, if we
look at some speeches of Ukrainian political actors we find a really high expectation
towards the EU. The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Oleg Ribachuk, (Vice PM on
Eurointegration) recently invited at a briefing organized by the European Policy Center 26 ,
stated that “..the only way forward for Ukraine was through European Union membership”
and also added that “The Orange Revolution had shown the world that the rule of law and
respect for human rights were guiding principles for Ukrainians in choosing the future of
their country. Ukraine was now ready to move beyond merely advocating common interests
to concretely achieving common values and standards on its way toward EU membership.
It had already demonstrated its deep commitment toward achieving this goal through the
government ‘Towards Europe’ program, one of the core elements of the Ukraine-EU
Action Plan”.
How does the EU deal with this expectation Is the EU attitude towards Ukraine clear
Despite of different opinions, these issues are not easy to address especially at this stage in
which there are yet no evaluations on the Ukraine results.
As some scholars suggested, the pro-EU attitude of the national political forces is a crucial
factor in motivating the reform processes inside the country (Morlino and Magen, 2004).
Some ENP countries, Ukraine in particular, seem to be ready, at least in the official
declarations of its political leaders, to fulfil the EU standards quickly. Hence, if the first
evaluations of the Action Plan commitments will underline great differences also in the
results achieved by the countries, the EU may no longer be able to avoid a serious
rethinking about the status of the different countries involved in the ENP.
Annex
Table 1. Comparative View on the Countries
Country Status Policy Key steps for the country
Romania Acceding Pre-Accession 1995: Europe Agreement
country policy
1999: Opening of the accession
talks
1999/2004: Monitoring of the preaccession
process
2002: Copenhagen Council
Serbia-
Montenegro
Potential
candidate
country
Stabilisation and
Association
Process
2005:Treaty of Accession
2000: Opening of the SAP
2004: European Partnership
2005: Feasibility Study and
opening of the SAA negotiations
26 The European Policy Centre (EPC) is an independent, non-profit think-tank in Brussels,
working on European integration (see http://www.theepc.be).