How Ukraine is "failing" on reforms on its path to the EU and what must be done
The European Commission publishes an enlargement report analysing the progress of all countries with an officially recognised EU membership perspective at the end of each year. This will also happen in 2025: EU Ambassador Katarína Mathernová announced that the report will be released on 4 November.
The European Commission will have to state the obvious: reforms have nearly come to a halt.
However, it is important to emphasise that there is no catastrophe yet. The EU, at least for now, will not conclude that Ukraine is unfit to remain a candidate or to move forward toward membership. Moreover, European capitals, even knowing that a critical report on Ukraine is being prepared, are still ready to send a positive political signal to Kyiv.
Read more about Ukraine’s reform problems and what can be done in the analysis by Sergiy Sydorenko, European Pravda’s editor: A year of stagnation, not reform: a critical EU report awaits Ukraine.
European Pravda has repeatedly explained that Ukraine’s "accession negotiations" with the EU are not negotiations in the classical sense. The accession process is structured so that candidate countries must implement the entire body of EU law into their own legislation, as it is mandatory for all member states, including new ones. During this process of adopting European standards, representatives of the European Commission and the candidate government meet regularly to assess whether everything is being done correctly.
The room for actual "negotiation" in this process exists, but it is very limited.
For example, there are several areas where the EU’s rules and procedures are not precisely defined, such as the rule of law, anti-corruption policy and other matters related to the foundations of democracy. Judicial systems across EU states differ. There is no single "correct" model. The main requirement is that courts must be fair, and that decisions are generally made in accordance with the law. Therefore, Kyiv can argue that its approach is legitimate.
All these issues are grouped in Cluster 1 Fundamentals. EU rules stipulate that progress in this cluster determines the overall progress of accession negotiations.
Among the numbered chapters in this cluster, the most important are Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights) and Chapter 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security).
These key chapters, 23 and 24, are the subject of a shadow report commissioned by the European Commission, which Brussels uses to cross-check its own assessments with those of Ukrainian civil society.
It is noteworthy that the civil society report does not use the term "rollback of reforms," although it very well could have.
This term acts as a litmus test. It has been used for Türkiye and Georgia, but not for Ukraine.
The main reason is that the controversial law of 22 July (which attacked anti-corruption institutions such as NABU and SAPO) was quickly repealed by Ukrainian parliament.
The document does not conceal Ukraine’s self-inflicted problems, mentioning, for example, that Kyiv has still not fully addressed the consequences of that attack on the anti-corruption infrastructure.
The section on judicial reform uses terms such as "slowdown" and "difficulties."
In the human rights section, most areas are described as those where Ukraine has failed to deliver expected reforms. At times, the government’s inaction is simply inexplicable. There are ready, EU-approved documents that remain unadopted for no clear reason.
Unfortunately, it can be stated that the decline and, in some areas, paralysis of reforms has become a hallmark of 2025.
At least in Chapters 23 and 24, only a few sectors, mostly those of lesser concern to the EU, show any tangible progress.
Now Ukraine must not only restart reforms but accelerate them significantly. Kyiv needs to, first, reassure its European partners that it understands the gravity of the situation, and second, demonstrate its capacity to advance toward membership. In 2025, neither of these goals has yet been achieved.