Ukrainian business is more ready for the EU than it thinks, – Vice Prime Minister Taras Kachka

Ukraine has now overcome most of the ukraine is on its way to integration with the EU, and Ukrainian business is more ready to work according to European rules than it thinks it is.

These are statements by a government official who knows more about the state of European integration than anyone else in Ukraine. Namely, the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Taras Kachka.

LIGA.net publishes the most interesting part of the government official's speech at the Deloitte Forum "Conductors of Change".

The historical path

In 1991, hypothetically, theoretically, sci-fi, we had a scenario of jumping into the same bandwagon as the Baltic states. But in reality, this is not even science fiction, but fantasy.

I studied a lot about how the Ukrainian state lived in 1991-1993. It is still a mystery to me how we survived. Because the quality of governance was very specific.

In 30 years of transformation, we have undergone a similar [change] to that of caisson disease. [A disease that occurs when you quickly move from an environment with high atmospheric air pressure to an environment with lower pressure – ed.]

Adaptation to the level where we are ready to join the European Union.

We are a country where there is much more sense in society, in business, in all its dimensions. Therefore, it is obvious that everything happened as it should have happened. And in fact, with every five-year or ten-year period, we have become more and more integrated into the EU.

Current stage of negotiations

We are now, roughly speaking, at the equator or the epicenter of the most culminating part of joining the European Union.

There are things that citizens are not very aware of. For example, the integration of electricity, or changes in trade or changes in food control.

These are all things that are also included in visa-free travel. It's just that people don't feel it, because it's something that concerns business, not each of us. And we have already lived through many such "visa-free" periods. This is a decade-long transformation. And now we need to do the final leap.

We have no other choice but to finish everything in the next 24 months – to approve lawswe are ready to make transformations. And we are ready for this, both morally and intellectually, and in terms of the state of society. In fact, the year 2028, when we can complete negotiations and sign an agreement on the terms of accession [to the EU], is absolutely realistic. The rest will depend on ratification.

Business transformation

When we signed the free trade agreement [with the EU], dairy producers said: you can sign anything you want. We don't care. We have Russia, it eats everything, any cheese, any quality. We have all the certificates there, we will still only sell there.

And when 2014 happened and Russia blocked everything, the same producers sat in the Verkhovna Rada Committee and said: why are the government and the Rada delaying the approval of all the necessary laws on food safety, we have already signed all the contracts. And it was a paradox.

When businesses say that the conditions for joining the EU are painful, they are 80% afraid that they will have to radically change their internal business processes and switch to something more expensive. I think that in the course of negotiations, most of these prejudices and fears dissipate. And vice versa, many companies will find out that the transition to the EU rules gives them access to richer customers.

I think that in the next few years, many industries will need to rethink their business strategies and realize that we are competitive even when applying European rules.

As for the rule of law, no matter what anyone says, we have already crossed the equator or the point of no return in these reforms. There are people who think that we can go back to '95 in the work of law enforcement agencies or courts, but this is nothing more than an expression of their opinions.

Obviously, the mechanisms for selecting judges have worked quite well. There is a model for the reform of law enforcement agencies, such as the NABU, and these methods should also be well applied. Now the BES is going through this process, not so easily, but it is going through it. And all other law enforcement agencies will go through it too.

Ukraine's role in the EU

As for the farmers, we do not claim with the money that Polish or Hungarian farmers receive. We do not pose a threat to them. Ukrainian agrarians are, in a broad sense, an instrument of rescue and development of the European agricultural sector. We have a completely different role. And the task of Ukraine and the European Union is to write in into the overall architecture.

If we do it right, then with Ukraine's accession to the European Union, we will be together the most powerful a player in global markets.

I am confident that we will be an important instrument for ensuring European open autonomy. All the things we are strong in will become even stronger and will fit into the understanding that Ukraine is not an additional burden, not something forgotten, but an important element of all the strategies that the European Union is trying to implement today.