Ukraine2EU: How the EU is helping Ukraine prepare for membership amid current realities
In the coming months, Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers is set to adopt a major document that is intended not only to serve as a roadmap for the reforms required in order to join the EU, but also to set the deadlines by which Ukraine commits to adopt all of the EU acquis – i.e. the European legislation. This document, the National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis, has already been partially drafted, but it needs to be finalised and adopted under the new government.
"We have launched a major EU project, Ukraine2EU, which is helping with this," former deputy prime minister for European integration Olha Stefanishyna told us in an interview following her resignation. She also revealed that the draft plans include a very ambitious goal – to complete this work by 2027.
What is Ukraine doing to prepare for EU accession? And how come the European Union is helping Ukraine prepare for accession talks with the EU itself? Is there a conflict of interest here? And let’s not turn a blind eye to reality: what happens if, in light of recent developments, the start of negotiations is delayed?
To answer these questions, European Pravda met with representatives of the EU-funded Ukraine2EU project.
We learned that help is being given with the negotiations: the government is conducting mock meetings with the EU. We also learned about the support being planned to Ukrainian think tanks and other civil society organisations (CSOs) that are contributing to Ukraine's EU accession process.
The start of accession talks that no one noticed
Anyone with even a passing interest in European affairs will be well aware that Ukraine is now desperately trying to open the first clusters in its EU accession talks – in other words, to officially start negotiations. Yet in fact, the accession process with Brussels is already underway.
Since early 2025, Ukraine and the European Union have been conducting a chapter-by-chapter screening of Ukrainian legislation for its compliance with EU law.
This screening, a technical but vital step, is a formal part of the accession process. It identifies which areas of Ukraine’s legal framework still fall short of EU standards or requirements for member states.
Once the EU agrees to open specific negotiation clusters and chapters, the process transitions to a continuous "compliance check". Has Kyiv fulfilled requirement No. XYZ? Are the amendments that Ukraine made to the law in a particular area sufficient? Are the laws applied in Ukraine in the same way as in the EU? What still needs to change?
Simply put, these ongoing discussions are the essence of what is called "accession negotiations". And no negotiating chapter is considered "closed" until the EU confirms that all the reforms required in this field have been fully implemented.
What this means is that, despite the name "negotiations", the EU accession process is not about negotiating the terms of membership. Rather, it’s about verifying whether a candidate country – in this case Ukraine – has aligned itself with the EU acquis, the shared legal framework that all member states must adopt.
Understanding this is crucial.
When the formal negotiations begin, awareness of this will be a prerequisite for Ukraine’s success.
That’s why one of the objectives of Ukraine’s EU partners is to shift how the accession process is perceived here. While this understanding is already present among the Ukrainian officials who work on European integration, it’s still lacking among many politicians and civil servants.
"It’s getting there – but it’s a process," says Ukraine2EU Team Leader Mantė Makauskaitė. "Many in Ukraine still talk in terms of the Association Agreement, but accession is far more. Even the semantics matter. Previously, we were talking about ‘legal approximation’, and now it's about ‘full harmonisation’ with EU law. Even with a few exceptions, in certain areas, you have to fully comply, ‘harmonise’ with EU law instead of getting closer."
Ukraine is not alone in this journey. The other countries that have joined the EU went through the same process of technical alignment and mindset shift.
Lithuania, now a core supporter of Ukraine’s path to EU membership, once received that kind assistance too. "We Lithuanians also had similar assistance from the Danes when we negotiated to join," recalls Darius Žeruolis, who led Lithuania’s European Integration Strategy Department during its accession. Sweden supported Latvia back then, and Finland helped Estonia.
In Ukraine’s case, the assistance is structured differently: the Ukraine2EU project is being jointly funded by the EU, Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden, and implemented by the Lithuanian Central Project Management Agency. "Аnd there are conversations ongoing with some other member states that are considering joining in," Makauskaitė adds.
Mock meetings and other accession tools
How exactly does Ukraine2EU support Ukraine’s accession process?
In short, its core idea is to provide bespoke support throughout the entire negotiation journey, offering help that’s tailored to Ukraine’s requests.
"Basically, we support main Ukrainian institutions driving the EU accession process and whatever support is requested – we can jump in if. Of course, if it meets the accession needs," says Makauskaitė, noting that there is a lot the project can do even before the official negotiating chapters open.
One of the most striking tools developed for Ukraine’s needs is what the project calls screening mock sessions – essentially simulated meetings with the European Commission. "You can call it a simulation," Makauskaitė explains.
It works like this.
Before each official screening meeting with the Commission, Ukrainian officials – in the same configuration as they would appear in the real talks – convene to hold these mock meetings. A moderator acts as a pretend EU Commission official, joined by international and domestic experts in the relevant field.
"These mock sessions mirror screening meetings with the European Commission," Makauskaitė explains. "We have a moderator taking the role of a Commission official, and then we hire international and national experts on relevant topics. That provides the Ukrainian delegation with feedback on what they are going to present to Brussels. We review the materials, the presentations, the questionnaires, and our feedback helps Ukraine to improve them."
For Ukrainian ministries, these sessions have proven genuinely useful. The numbers speak for themselves.
By the end of June, Ukraine2EU had supported Ukraine’s preparations for bilateral screening sessions with the Commission in 13 negotiating chapters. Depending on the chapter, each mock session attracted between 20 and 100 participants.
As Ukrainian officials half-jokingly put it, "this is the first time Ukraine is joining the EU," so it often lacks a clear sense of what data EU representatives need most, how to effectively explain the state of a particular sector, and which arguments are persuasive to their Western counterparts (and which are not).
And that is just one of the many areas where Ukraine2EU is already active, even before the clusters officially open.
For instance, the project is also involved in helping draft Ukraine’s negotiating positions for some Clusters – a document that the country must prepare before negotiations can formally begin. The role of European experts in drawing up this document deserves separate attention later on.
"We're also involved in the development of a critically important document called the National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis (NPAA)," Makauskaitė says. "We're backing the government in drafting the national programme cluster by cluster. And later we are ready to support the implementation and monitoring of that programme."
The NPAA is an internal Ukrainian government document – it has not been negotiated with the EU and is not formally required by EU rules. But as with many aspects of EU enlargement, tradition is powerful. Every candidate country adopts such a document, with the same name, and it carries significant weight.
In Ukraine’s case it is particularly important, since Ukraine wants to move quickly once the official talks begin. The NPAA will set clear deadlines and identify the specific EU acts that must be integrated into Ukrainian law. It is this document that officials are referring to when they mention "completing accession preparations by the end of 2027".
Ambitious? Bold? Definitely. Meanwhile, let’s highlight an interesting observation.
In conversations with European Pravda, none of the EU officials working on Ukraine, or experts from countries that are considered Ukraine’s closest allies, have criticised Kyiv for its ambition. Some countries that have a mindset very different from Ukraine's may express occasional sсepticism and suggest that its goals should be more "realistic", but Ukraine2EU makes no secret of the fact that they are firmly in the first group – those who fully support Ukraine’s ambitious approach.
"I joke that our programme is for three years unless Ukraine joins the EU earlier. Some people take this joke better than others," says Makauskaitė.
European assistance for negotiations with the EU?
Earlier, we briefly mentioned the fact that an EU project is helping the Ukrainian government develop its negotiating position for some of the clusters, and this point merits a closer look.
Many readers might wonder, "Wait, is that even allowed?" If these are negotiations between two sides, Ukraine and the EU, is it appropriate for EU citizens, including EU-funded experts, to help prepare Ukraine for negotiations with the European Union? Doesn’t that represent a conflict of interest?
These questions do come up from time to time, Makauskaite acknowledges.
"A Ukrainian friend of mine also asked me: how can we trust international experts? They wouldn’t work in our interest. My answer is: you can get that trust by finding the right people. There are EU member states that are genuinely interested in Ukraine joining the EU. Lithuania is one of them, and there are definitely more of those who see Ukraine’s EU accession as a win-win".
"Ultimately, such experts can share their knowledge, expertise and experience to enrich internal discussions and decision-making processes in Ukraine, whether they are governmental or public," she says.
Indeed, economically speaking, Ukraine poses little risk of competition to Lithuania (or the other Baltic states). And Lithuania has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to helping Ukraine join the EU.
Let’s also return to a point mentioned at the start of the article. EU accession negotiations are structured fundamentally differently from traditional international negotiations. Even Ukraine’s negotiating position not only can but must be discussed with Brussels before it is finalised. Likewise, the European Commission shares drafts of its position with Kyiv. These documents need to be acceptable to both sides, and agreeing on them in advance is simply the most efficient way. European Pravda has covered this in detail in a previous article, "Inside the EU Integration Kitchen".
After all, the end goal of Ukraine’s EU integration is the full adoption of EU law into Ukraine’s legislation.
This approach applies to all candidate countries, and similar questions have arisen elsewhere too.
For example, Ukraine2EU includes experts from the Balkans who are ready to share both life hacks and failures – like Drita Abdiu-Halili, former deputy chief negotiator for North Macedonia’s EU accession. She says experience has proven that the role played by the European Commission in negotiations is different from what many assume.
"The Commission plays the role of the advocate of the acceding country towards the member states and supports the process. It's not the opposite side taking you to a different direction," the North Macedonian negotiator explains, emphasising that in her experience, EU-sponsored projects provided truly meaningful assistance.
Because the question isn’t which reforms the candidate country must implement – that’s already determined by EU law, and there is very little room for manoeuvre. The key is how to carry out those reforms most effectively, and in a way that fits the national economy.
"For this, the EU support of this process goes hand in hand with funding. The EU doesn't just say: 'You have to do all this, thank you, see you at the end of the road.' It says, 'In order to do this, we will support you with this,'" Abdiu-Halili says.
Not just the government
In Ukraine there is a widespread belief that the accession process should follow the path taken by the Central and Eastern European countries that successfully joined the EU in 2004. The thinking goes: if that path worked for them, we should follow it too. But representatives from those countries stress that while past experience should be considered, it cannot be repeated exactly – first of all, because the European Union today is different than it was 20 years ago.
"Since then the body of EU law has evolved a lot," points out Darius Žeruolis, who oversaw Lithuania’s EU integration. "I would recommend not focusing too much on past experiences, but trying to approach it with your own thinking."
Still, there is no reason to ignore the lessons learned and mistakes made by others.
"Some things are still advisable. What could work as transitional periods, derogations, sensitivities. There is already someone who paved the path. But you have to consider that at the end of the day, the job has to be done by Ukrainian institutions," Žeruolis says.
And institutional readiness is a serious issue.
Kyiv constantly has to balance what the government can do itself and what can be delegated to non-governmental actors – and not just where EU projects are concerned.
Back in 2022, Ukraine’s government succeeded in completing the EU’s questionnaires (massive tomes that used to take candidate countries months to process) remarkably quickly thanks to the involvement of independent experts from CSOs who had been working on European integration for years. Three years later, the government still relies on non-governmental actors.
This approach is not typical for the EU (it’s a distinctly Ukrainian feature), but European institutions generally have no objection to it.
In fact, Ukraine2EU is even preparing a grant programme for CSOs contributing to the EU accession process.
"The involvement of CSOs is one of the conundrums to me that I’ve reflected on a lot since I started working on Ukraine," admits Mantė Makauskaitė. "In some cases, Ukrainian civil society organisations are better equipped with capacity, experience and knowledge than some consultancy companies."
But no amount of help from the EU, friendly member states, think tanks or external experts can substitute for the most important factor.
A country that aspires to join the EU must be ready. It must demonstrate its commitment and be able to deliver on it.
"EU accession is a governmental process. When you look at it from the EU member states’ perspective, they are evaluating governmental capacity to become a member and to act as a member," the Ukraine2EU team leader points out.
Europeans are prepared to support Ukraine on this path, and they are doing that. But we must walk this path ourselves.
Author: Sergiy Sydorenko,
European Pravda
This piece was prepared by European Pravda with the support of Ukraine2EU. The emphasis and conclusions solely reflect the position of the European Pravda editorial team.