14th Ukraine-EU Summit held in Brussels on November 22 brought to the Ukrainian side a long coveted prize – Action Plan on Visa Liberalization. According to the Summit’s documents, it defines technical conditions that should be fulfilled by Ukraine to ensure progress towards establishing a visa free regime for the short-stay trips of Ukrainian citizens. This process is viewed by the EU side as a long-term perspective being directly dependent upon Ukrainian Government’s ability to achieve goals set by the EU in the following fields: document security, including biometrics; illegal migration, including readmission; public order and security; external relations and fundamental rights.
Successful implementation of the Plan will be impossible without allocation of considerable financial and other resources and capacities, as well as consistency and political will on the part of Ukrainian leadership. It might be presumed that largely technical issues, such as production of new passports, or problems related to the improvement of migration management, strengthening minority rights and anti-dicrimination legislation would not create insurmountable obstacles for Ukrainian authorities, while anti-corruption and law-enforcement efficiency goals will be much more difficult to achieve. Thus, there is a visible difference of opinion between Kyiv and Brussels, when visa free travel of Ukrainian nationals to EU will become a reality: though Ukrainian officials are thinking in terms of 1.5 to 2 years, Eurocrats are extremely cautious. Quite tellingly, Action Plan does not mention any time frame (in EU speak it long term perspective usually means, at least, 8 years) and decline automaticity in decision making: it envisages rigorous evaluation of Ukraine’s progress in the fulfillment of each set of benchmarks.