Why it's no longer just about the "lack of reform progress" and what the EU should do

10.07.2025, 15:04 eurointegration.com.ua

The pace of reforms that Ukraine picked up at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022 has radically slowed down. Moreover, in several key sectors, there are signs of actual rollback.

Brussels is well aware of this. However, at the EU leadership level, there is a strict taboo against publicly criticising Ukraine during wartime. This, in turn, encourages Kyiv to take steps that further undermine its European trajectory.

Is there a way out of this "vicious circle"? And what is actually happening with crucial reforms, particularly in the area of justice? This was the focus of a conversation between Sergiy Sydorenko, European Pravda's editor, and Mykhailo Zhernakov, Executive Director of the DEJURE Foundation.

You can read more in the article: I must speak frankly: reform rollback has begun. What’s happening with European reforms in Ukraine.

If Ukraine doesn’t have a proper Bureau of Economic Security (BES), then we won’t have reconstruction either.

Because you can’t rebuild the country’s economy without the rule of law. And that’s not just my opinion. For years, potential foreign investors have named the rule of law as the number one obstacle to investing in Ukraine. What’s happening now completely contradicts their expectations.

European Pravda reminds readers that the competition to select the head of the Bureau of Economic Security was won by NABU detective Oleksandr Tsyvinsky, who had international experts' support, but the government never appointed him.

The timing of this blatant failure around the BES couldn’t have been worse. It happened just three days before the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Rome – a key international event where Ukraine is asking for financial support from its partners!

Kyiv also knows that completing the BES appointment process is directly tied to $5 billion in budgetary support (from the IMF and EU).

But this is not the only problem. Other reform areas are also in crisis.

The selection of candidates to bodies within the justice system has seen a very difficult and troubling decline in recent months.

What’s now at stake isn’t new reform, but the preservation of what has already been achieved.

And I must say it clearly: a rollback of reforms has begun.

This rollback is happening in three out of the seven reform areas. Remember the "seven steps" – the reform benchmarks that Ukraine had to meet to receive EU candidate status, and which became conditions for opening accession talks?

The first item on that list was a new procedure for selecting Constitutional Court judges with international expert involvement.

The second included two conditions: the reboot of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) and the High Council of Justice (HCJ).

Right now, in all three of these institutions, we’re seeing either a rollback or direct attacks aimed at dismantling the progress that has been made.

The European Union is fully aware of the situation.

Brussels also insists that the Supreme Court needs reform, with international experts involved in that process too.

Another layer of the problem Brussels knows about: in several bodies, the mandates of international experts have expired. Their participation in selection commissions was seen as a temporary measure, but the judicial system was never fully rebooted.

If their involvement is not extended now, then new members of these "reformed" institutions will instead be appointed by unreformed bodies, like the Council of Judges or the Bar Council, which is still headed by Lidiia Izovitova, an ally of Viktor Medvedchuk, or by representatives of the unreformed prosecutor’s office.

Even if the EU cannot openly criticise Ukraine, so as not to give ammunition to its enemies, it must at least assess the situation honestly and adequately.

Read full news…