How Ukraine is preparing to join the EU market and what is hindering negotiations

When the news talks about Ukraine’s future EU membership and the requirements Kyiv must fulfill, it usually focuses on "political" issues (democracy, rule of law, etc.).
But the real foundation of the European Union is the economy.
Above all, it’s the single market, which Ukraine also aspires to join.
Recently, at the second closed expert meeting within the Eurointegration Kitchen in Kyiv’s Eurohub, participants discussed the second cluster of EU accession negotiations – Internal Market.
EuroPravda followed the discussion and selected the most interesting points.
Read more about what changes EU membership brings for Ukrainian businesses and whether any exceptions can be expected along the way in read the article by our editors Yurii Panchenko and Sergiy Sydorenko: Eurointegration kitchen: how negotiations on the EU single market are being prepared and what Ukraine wants.
The Internal Market is one of the clusters where Ukraine has made the most progress. In particular, the screening procedure – an assessment of how Ukrainian legislation matches EU standards – has been completed.
The draft screening report by the European Commission is also ready and awaits the unblocking of the process (currently blocked by Hungary).
The document notes that the European Commission gives a "positive" assessment of current Ukrainian legislation in three of the nine chapters of this cluster: Company Law (Chapter 6), Intellectual Property (Chapter 7), and Competition Policy (Chapter 8).
The situation is worse in the other areas.
Surprisingly, Chapter 1 turned out to be among the "problematic" ones, even though the Free Movement of Goods was previously considered a success story.
The problem seems to be that Ukraine has not given this topic systematic, comprehensive attention in the past. There are sections of Chapter 1 where the situation is very positive (for example, in standardisation), but in other areas, like market surveillance, Ukraine remains at "square one."
Also, anticipating rapid progress once Hungary lifts its veto, Ukraine completed its next step, preparing and agreeing with the EU on a draft of its negotiation position. At the closed discussion in Eurohub, government officials proudly shared that this document was prepared extremely quickly, in just two weeks.
And while joining the EU does not allow for freely choosing which membership conditions to fulfill, there is a minimal degree of "flexibility."
Kyiv tried to squeeze the maximum out of EU enlargement rules (requesting certain delays and exemptions), but these didn’t even pass the first filter – preliminary consultations with Brussels.
As a result, the EU convinced Ukraine to revise its negotiation position. Deviations from full adaptation to EU norms must be exceptional and have solid justification.
And that’s not the only challenge Ukraine faces.
The bulk of Ukraine’s negotiation position is a description of which EU legal norms it must transpose into national law and when it will do so.
The problem lies precisely with this "when" because of martial law.
Here, Ukraine and the EU managed to find a compromise: Ukraine must adopt the legislation necessary for accession, but in some cases, it doesn’t have to specify exactly when these laws will enter into force.
This approach has, for now, allowed Ukraine to avoid the highly sensitive issue of selling agricultural land to foreigners.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian businesses view the upcoming changes calmly, but without euphoria.
Business associations warn that for an effective transition to EU technical regulation standards, Ukraine needs a sufficient number of laboratories and certification centers.
Overall, Ukrainian businesses are not particularly afraid of competition from European companies in Ukraine, since the domestic market was opened back in 2008 when Ukraine joined the World Trade Organization. But guarantees of stable access to the EU market are indeed essential for Ukrainian producers.
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11 of July 2025