Beyond European Union Membership: Rule of Law in EU-Ukraine Association Agreement
A pioneer European-Union-Ukraine Association Agreement (hereinafter, “the EU-Ukraine AA” or “the Agreement”) signed after the dramatic events of 2014 Ukrainian Dignity Revolution, has brought extensive scientific debates on its legal nature, legal effect and constitutional challenges of implementation since there were no antecedents in EU external policy to compare. Aiming to establish deep and comprehensive free trade area, it goes far beyond the mere ‘economic issues’ also ‘influencing the quality of democracy, governance and the rule of law’, as the essential elements of EU-Ukraine bilateral relations. Though, the Union does not give any interpretation of the rule of law. It is argued the correct understanding of the rule of law is of vital importance to safeguard a proper consistent implementation of the Agreement and, consequently, complete the 90% regulatory approximation to the EU legal and economic standards. The violation of rule of law principle as the core element of the AA inevitably leads to its suspension, nevertheless an accurate meaning of rule of law remains missing thus far. The main question to this extent is how the rule of law in understood by the EU-Ukraine AA. The two possible scenarios will be scrutinized onwards.
Iryna Dyvoniak . i.dyvoniak@um.es
University of Murcia
PhD in Law (Ukraine), National University ‘Odessa Law Academy’ (Ukraine), PhD. In Law Candidate, University of Murcia (Spain).