Which three sectors Ukraine can strengthen amid changes in the EU
The European Union is entering a new phase of rethinking its strategic priorities: from decarbonisation to competitiveness.
The goal is simple but ambitious: to reduce external dependencies and turn the EU into a global player with its own industrial and security backbone.
Thus, Brussels is now focusing on defence, industrial competitiveness and the evolving role of agriculture.
Among all sectors of the economy, three industries – defence, steel and agriculture – are both essential to Ukraine's economy and critically important for the EU's political agenda.
Read more about the challenges and opportunities for these three Ukrainian sectors amid the EU's transformation in the column by Olha Bielkova, Senior Advisor at FTI Consulting Brussels: Three drivers of Eurointegration: in which sectors Ukraine can become indispensable for the EU.
The author recalls that Russian aggression has acted as a catalyst for the development of Ukraine’s defence industry. Yet a crucial question arises: what will happen to the defence sector after the war ends?
Bielkova warns that once the war ends, there is a risk of returning to a fragmented domestic market with limited demand and unstable financing.
Therefore, the key task is to position Ukraine as a long-term partner in defence production and development.
According to the senior advisor, this can be achieved through: participation in the European Defence Fund (EDF), creation of joint ventures with European manufacturers and political advocacy for Ukraine’s role in the EU’s joint defence system.
Meanwhile, Europe is determining who and where will supply the steel it needs for defence, energy and transportation sectors. Bielkova is confident that Ukraine can and should be part of this internal European logic.
The steel industry, she notes, remains one of Ukraine’s key economic pillars and retains strategic importance for the country’s stability post-2022.
In March 2025, the European Commission introduced the Steel and Metals Action Plan, the first comprehensive industrial strategy for the steel sector. It includes: a review of anti-dumping rules, new origin criteria, safeguards against overproduction, support for the transition to "green steel" through the Clean Industrial Deal.
"If Ukraine does not integrate into the common rules of the game as a special partner-candidate, there is a risk of remaining on the periphery of the EU internal market, which increasingly protects its ‘own’ producers," Bielkova warns.
Therefore, she argues, Ukraine must secure partner status and exemption from CBAM (the carbon border tax on products made outside the EU with high greenhouse gas emissions), launch joint projects with European companies, join modernisation programmes and prove compliance with EU standards.
Furthermore, Bielkova notes that Ukraine’s post-war agricultural sector could become vulnerable if it does not secure regulatory flexibility and support for maintaining access to Asian and African markets.
She believes that co-creating a new global food security policy with the EU is a pathway for Ukraine to transition from being a competitor to becoming an irreplaceable partner.
Therefore, Kyiv should: push for partial exemption from EU agricultural regulations, which are preconditions for access to subsidies, in recognition of its status as a strategic food security partner, invest in green agrotechnologies (organic farming, fertiliser control, regenerative agriculture), negotiate new quotas, export allocation mechanisms and participation in joint programmes including "Made in Europe."