Dear colleagues, 

More than ten months have passed since Ukraine received EU candidate status with a number of recommendations to be fulfilled for further promotion to membership.

The New Europe Center in partnership with a number of specialized Ukrainian think-tanks and NGOs carried out the fourth independent monitoring of Ukraine’s implementation of EU recommendations.

Please find the results of the “Candidate Check-1” (as of August 17, 2022) here, “Candidate-Check-2” (as of November 8, 2022) here and “Candidate Check-3” (as of February 1, 2023) here.

OVERALL SCORE: 6.8 points (was 5.8).

Experts’ scores (on a 10-point scale):

1. Reform of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine – 2 points (was 2)
2. Reform of High Council of Justice (HCJ) and the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine (HQCJ) – 8 points (was 7)
3. Anti-corruption: SAP (Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecution) and NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) – 8 points (was 7)
4. Combating money laundering – 6 points (the score has not changed)
5. Anti-oligarch reform – not rated (was 2)*
6. Media legislation – 9 points (the score has not changed)
7. Legislation on national minorities – 8 points (the score has not changed)

*Please note the change in the evaluation methodology! Since Ukraine received 7 recommendations in June 2022, the implementation of recommendation №5 has been effectively frozen due to the lack of a conclusion from the Venice Commission (VC).

At the same time, sources indicate that the EU has changed its attitude to this criterion: it considers other mechanisms to overcome the excessive influence of oligarchs more effective than the implementation of an “anti-oligarch” law.

In view of this, the «Candidate Check» panel of experts decided to withdraw its previous score (2 points) and not to assess the implementation of this recommendation at all. The assessment will be resumed after the VC provides its conclusion and/or the EU publishes its position on this issue.

In order to accurately reflect the dynamics of the implementation of the 7 reforms, we consider it appropriate to recount the results of previous editions of “Candidate Check” using the new evaluation methodology:

• “Candidate Check-1” (2 months of candidacy) – 4.8 (was 4.4)
• “Candidate Check-2” (4 months of candidacy) – 5.2 (was 4.7)
• “Candidate Check-3” (7 months of candidacy) – 6.5 (was 5.8)

The New Europe Center would like to express gratitude to partners who participated in the second independent monitoring of EU reforms implementation:

• National Interests Advocacy Network ‘ANTS’
• Anticorruption Action Centre ‘ANTAC’
• DEJURE Foundation
• European Pravda
• Centre of Policy and Legal Reform (CPLR)
• Transperency International Ukraine
• Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research (UCIPR)
• Detector Media

Experts involved:

• Mykhailo Zhernakov, Stepan Berko (DEJURE)
• Oleksandr Marusiak, Roman Smaliuk, Eugene Krapyvin (CPLR)
• Anton Marchuk (ANTAC)
• Oleksandr Kalitenko (TI)
• Vadym Miskyi (Detector Media)
• Serhii Sydorenko (European Pravda)
• Yulia Tyshchenko (UCIPR)
• Hanna Hopko (ANTS)