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Gerald Knaus, Member of the IWP’s Supervisory Board and President of the European Stability Initiative, is sharing his views on the role that the EU should play in the reforms’ process of Ukraine, based on its previous experience in Central Europe and the Balkans.According to Mr. Knaus, the core lesson learned from reforms elsewhere in Europe is that very few reforms are strategic, and being strategic means being accurate as possible regarding how to use the most precious resource: the time.

In this situation, Mr. Knaus stresses that the EU should not make the life of the reformers more difficult, but to help them to focus on the right issues. In the pre-accession process of Central European countries, the EU was effective by helping reformers to ask the right questions. Afterwards, civil servants, and not external consultants, had to find answers to these questions, of course, with the support of the EU.

The role of think tanks and intellectuals who really want to support Ukraine in its reforms should be to make sure the EU does not become another ‘time-thief’.

Gerald Knaus explains how the EU can bring changes in Ukraine. Video