In The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, Guillaume Van der Loo provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of this complex and controversial international agreement. While key political and legal hurdles towards the signing and conclusion of this agreement are analysed, its scope and contents are scrutinised and contrasted to other international agreements concluded by the EU. Specific attention is devoted to the ambitious “deep and comprehensive free trade area” and the unique provisions related to Ukraine’s approximation to the EU acquis. In particular, this book explores to what extent the agreement can be considered a new legal instrument for ‘EU integration without membership’.
Deep trade agreements (DTAs) cover not just trade but additional policy areas, such as international flows of investment and labor and the protection of intellectual property rights and the environment. Their goal is integration beyond trade or deep integration. These agreements matter for economic development. Their rules influence how countries (and hence, the people and firms that live and operate within them) transact, invest, work, and ultimately, develop. Trade and investment regimes determine the extent of economic integration, competition rules affect economic efficiency, intellectual property rights matter for innovation, and environmental and labor rules contribute to environmental and social outcomes. This Handbook provides the tools and data needed to analyze these new dimensions of integration and to assess the content and consequences of DTAs. The Handbook and the accompanying database are the result of collaboration between experts in different policy areas from academia and other international organizations, including the International Trade Centre (ITC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and World Trade Organization (WTO).
The signing of the Association Agreement and DCFTA between Ukraine and the European Union in 2014 was an act of strategic, geopolitical significance in the history of Ukraine. Emblematic of a struggle to replace the Yanukovich regime at home and to resist attempts by Russia to deny Ukraine its European choice, the Association Agreement is a defiant statement of the country s choice to become a democratic, independent state. The purpose of this Handbook is to make the legal content of the Association Agreement clearly comprehensible. It covers all the significant political and economic chapters of the Agreement, and in each case explains the meaning of the commitments made by Ukraine and the challenges posed by their implementation. A unique reference source for this historic act, this Handbook is intended for professional readers, namely officials, parliamentarians, diplomats, business leaders, lawyers, consultants, think tanks, civil society organisations, university teachers, trainers, students and journalists. The work has been carried out by two teams of researchers from leading independent think tanks, CEPS in Brussels and the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (IER) in Kyiv, with the support of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). It is one of a trilogy of Handbooks, with the other two volumes examining similar Association Agreements made by the EU with Georgia and Moldova."
"External relations is currently among the most dynamic areas of EU law. This volume gathers leading analysts to assess core recent developments in the field, taking stock of the current law and potential developments in major policy areas." "Together, these essays present a clear picture of the complex development of EU external relations, and of the struggle for coherence in the increasingly active, visible, and self-conscious role played by the EU as a participant in the international legal order."--BOOK JACKET.
This unique book, representing the main output of the Jean Monnet Multilateral Research Project granted by the European Commission, is dedicated to the legal and political dimension of the European Union policy towards its Eastern neighbours, namely Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. The Eastern Partnership clearly occupies a privileged position in the EU’s external relations and constitutes an important “Eastern axis” of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The book examines relevant material from a broad perspective, and attention is paid to the in-depth analysis of Eastern Partnership Agreements and the new Association agreements, examining their place in the External Relations Law of the EU and the legal mechanisms of their operation. In this respect, comparisons with the previous Association agreements with the states of the Central Europe are also made here. A great part of the book is also dedicated to an analysis of the issues of human rights, the rule of law, and legal approximation as a key element of the acceptation of duties of the association countries. Recent political unrest in Ukraine in connection with the delay of the signature of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement has also shown that this contract instrument is considered to be a key indicator in geopolitical terms, as a concrete expression and powerful symbol of the future orientation of this Partnership state and its willingness to share common European values. This volume’s analysis of this document enables a better understanding of the reasons for, and the core of, this development. The diversity of contributors to this book allows a multi-perspectival analysis, incorporating views from old and new EU Member States, as well as Partnership states, and reflects the recent experiences of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Estonia with regards to the implementation of the Association Agreements. The volume is also opened by the preface of the Commissioner for the Enlargement, Eastern Partnership and the Association, Stefan Füle, and reflects his experience in these matters.
This publication displays the menu for choice of available methods to evaluate the impact of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). It caters mainly to policy makers from developing countries and aims to equip them with some economic knowledge and techniques that will enable them to conduct their own economic evaluation studies on existing or future FTAs, or to critically re-examine the results of impact assessment studies conducted by others, at the very least.
One of The New York Times’ “6 Books to Read for Context on Ukraine” “A short and insightful primer” to the crisis in Ukraine and its implications for both the Crimean Peninsula and Russia’s relations with the West (New York Review of Books) The current conflict in Ukraine has spawned the most serious crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. It has undermined European security, raised questions about NATO's future, and put an end to one of the most ambitious projects of U.S. foreign policy—building a partnership with Russia. It also threatens to undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts on issues ranging from terrorism to nuclear proliferation. And in the absence of direct negotiations, each side is betting that political and economic pressure will force the other to blink first. Caught in this dangerous game of chicken, the West cannot afford to lose sight of the importance of stable relations with Russia. This book puts the conflict in historical perspective by examining the evolution of the crisis and assessing its implications both for the Crimean Peninsula and for Russia’s relations with the West more generally. Experts in the international relations of post-Soviet states, political scientists Rajan Menon and Eugene Rumer clearly show what is at stake in Ukraine, explaining the key economic, political, and security challenges and prospects for overcoming them. They also discuss historical precedents, sketch likely outcomes, and propose policies for safeguarding U.S.-Russia relations in the future. In doing so, they provide a comprehensive and accessible study of a conflict whose consequences will be felt for many years to come.
For Georgia, the signing of the Association Agreement and the DCFTA with the European Union in 2014 was an act of strategic geopolitical significance. Of all the EU’s eastern partners, the country distinguished itself since the Rose Revolution of 2003 by pushing ahead with a radical liberalisation and economic reform agenda. Georgia is unique among the countries in the region for having largely cleansed its economy of corruption in the post-Rose Revolution period, although its political system is marked by oligarchal state capture since the change of government in 2012. The purpose of this Handbook is to make the complex political, economic and legal content of the Association Agreement readily understandable. This third edition, published seven years since signature of after entry into force of the Agreement’s implementation is substantially new in content, both updating how Georgia has been implementing the Agreement, and introducing new dimensions (including the Green Deal, the Covid-19 pandemic, cyber security, and gender equality). The Handbook is also up to date in analysing Georgia’s troubled democracy. Two teams of researchers from leading independent think tanks, CEPS in Brussels and Reformatics in Tbilisi, collaborated on this project, with the support of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). This Handbook is one of a trilogy examining similar Association Agreements made by the EU with Ukraine and Moldova.
This handbook explains in readily comprehensible language what the new Association Agreement between the European Union and Moldova means in legal, political and economic terms. This treaty is a milestone in the history of Moldova's place in Europe, and definitively marks the ...
