EU-Ukraine bilateral meetings on economic criteria and financial control take place in Brussels
On October 8, Ukraine and the European Commission held meetings in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss the approximation of Ukrainian legislation to EU law in the areas of Economic Criteria and negotiated Title 32 Financial Controls, which are part of the negotiation process of Ukraine's accession to the European Union.
The meetings took place in a hybrid format - Ukrainian delegations participated both offline and online. On behalf of Ukraine, the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine and Minister of Justice of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna delivered opening remarks.
“Ukraine has already made considerable efforts to harmonize its legal framework with the European law in order to make our country competitive and functional in the European internal market. We have done a lot of work to harmonize our legal framework with the EU acquis. I am deeply grateful to our team that has been preparing intensively and thoroughly for this session, given the importance of economic integration into the EU, as well as the process of rebuilding and restoring our economy from the consequences of the war,” Olha Stefanishyna emphasized.
Opening remarks from the EU side were delivered by the Presiding Officer of the European Commission, Head of Interinstitutional and International Relations at the Directorate General for Justice of the European Commission (DG JUST) Marc Jorna, Anna Jarosz-Friis, Director for Ukraine Service at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), and Annika Eriksgård, Director for International Economic and Financial Affairs at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN).
According to Oleksii Sobolev, First Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, during the session on Economic Criteria, the Ukrainian delegation presented an assessment of Ukraine's progress in meeting the EU's Economic Criteria, which will serve as a basis for future negotiations. The Ukrainian side presented its vision of the further functioning of a market economy, Ukraine's ability to integrate into the EU's common market, attract investment, and implement structural reforms.
During the screening session, the issues of macroeconomic stability, functioning of commodity markets, financial market, labor market, education and innovation, physical capital and quality of infrastructure, sectoral and corporate structure of the Ukrainian economy, economic integration with the EU and price competitiveness, as well as the fight against corruption were discussed.
During the session on negotiating chapter 32 Financial Control, Deputy Minister of Finance Denys Uliutin spoke in detail about the measures taken in the field of state internal financial control and the approximation of national standards to the best international practices.
“Since there are no two identical public administration systems in the world, our financial control system also has its own peculiarities, which were formed historically and adapted to our needs. Currently, our main task is to further approximate the EU standards, ensuring synergy between different types of control and full coverage of the public sector. This is especially important in view of the receipt of significant amounts of external financing and large-scale measures to rebuild, restore and modernize Ukraine,” Denys Uliutin said.
The reports were presented by the representatives of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, the Accounting Chamber, the State Audit Service of Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Education and Science, and the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine.