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The representatives of the Institute of World Policy, Senior Analyst Leonid Litra and First Deputy Director Sergiy Solodkyy, participated in the expert discussion of the EU’s role in conflict resolution in other countries.The event has been held at the London School of Economics (the UK) within the large-scale project implemented by a consortium of twelve partner organizations. The “Whole of Society Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding” (WOSCAP) project is a part of framework of the European Union’s “Horizon 2020” program. This project is aimed at critical and constructive assessment of policies and instruments applied by the EU in order to prevent and resolve conflicts.
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Aside from the overall analysis of the EU’s policies and specific issues Associated with peacebuilding (such as multilateral diplomacy, management, etc.), project participants will focus on four specific conflicts (Ukraine, Georgia, Mali and Yemen) in order to assess the EU’s efforts and to propose policy options.
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This project is implemented under direction of the GPPAC (Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, Hague) and in partnership with nine organizations, including the Institute of World Policy, London School of Economics, Utrecht University and others.
Duration of this project is 2.5 years, from mid-2015 until the end of 2017. Ukraine has joined the EU’s “Horizon 2020” program only in March 2015, when the IWP had already contributed to its realization.

Sergiy Solodkyy, First Deputy Director of the IWP, presented IWP research “How Could the EU Accelerate Reforms in Ukraine?” at the conferenсe “Ukraine’s Other Front: State of Play and Prospects on Reforms”, held on November 30th, in Brussels.The discussion on the state of implementation of reforms in Ukraine was organized by the Ukrainian Think Tanks Liaison Office in Brussels in cooperation with the Open Society European Policy Institute and with support of the Think Tank Fund, the International Renaissance Foundation and SIDA.

Sergiy Solodkyy, First Deputy Director of the IWP, told about main findings of IWP research “How Could the EU Accelerate Reforms in Ukraine?”.

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Photos: Maria Zolkina
During the panel discussion, invited Ukrainian and EU-based experts discussed a wide range of questions, in particular: How much progress has been made with the reforms? Is the Ukrainian government doing enough? Is support from the international community sufficient to help Ukraine in these difficult times? What is the impact of the recent local elections on the situation in the country, and on the territories affected by the conflict?

Last week on 26th of November the research was presented to the Ukrainian stakeholders in Kyiv.
To download the full publication, please, click here.

The research is a material for discussion, so we invite Ukrainian and foreign experts to express their comments and observations. The final version of policy brief will be published later.

The research was conducted within the project of the Institute of World Policy “New European Policy: Filling the Information Gap”.

This project is implemented under Ukraine National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms (UNITER) program, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Pact Inc. IWP also expresses its gratitude to International Renaissance Foundation (IRF), Think Tank Fund (TTF), and Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine (SIDA) for conducting the research.

On the 26 of November, the Institute of World Policy presented its research “How Could the EU Accelerate Reforms in Ukraine?”The key findings were presented by Sergiy Solodkyy, First Deputy Director of the Institute of World Policy, and Vitalіy Sharlay, expert of the Reanimation Package of Reforms. This policy brief is based on numerous interviews with state officials, IWP’s expert survey, and nationwide opinion poll.

To download the full publication, please, click here.

Our research is a material for discussion, so we invite Ukrainian and foreign experts to express their comments and observations. The final version of policy brief will be published later.

After the presentation, invited government officials, diplomats, and experts assessed the current level of the EU assistance to reforms in Ukraine, discussed the expectations of various stakeholders, and developed some recommendations for decision-makers.
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Alyona Getmanchuk, Director, Institute of World Policy, Olena Tregub, Director of the International Department, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, Sergiy Solodkyy, First Deputy Director, Institute of World Policy and Vitaliy Sharlay, Expert of public policy analysis, Reanimation package of reforms.
“We were planning to carry out very short document like 3-6 pages recommendations for the European Union how to accelerate the attempts of Ukrainian authorities to implement reforms. While we were carry out the work on the developing of this document, we interviewed a lot of representatives of the Ukrainian government and EU experts. 65 people were participating in this project and a lot of them are present today on our presentation. I will be happy to hear your comments and common thoughts today.
The strong side of our survey is that absolutely representative. My colleagues evaluate the involvement of the EU in the reforms and they also express their expectations what would accelerate the implementing of changes in Ukraine as a part of European Union.
This paper has a discussion nature, and we are going to hear all the comments and than we are going to reflected them in the document as well. We understand and we always have herd from the EU that first of all you should not request something from the EU and you have to demonstrate some ownership of the reforms in Ukraine. This is the task for Ukrainians themselves. With the help of the international community and in particular EU our reform movement could have been accelerated.
We also give the evaluation of the support that EU gives today to certain segments of implementing reform: political pressure, financial assistance, support of the civil society and we also give some comments of this support. We evaluate the actions or lack of those of the Ukrainian government. We were trying to be absolutely objective in describing this aspects because we don`t believe that those who are saying that the government doesn`t do anything are right. But we have to be critical because reforms could have been implemented faster”, – Alyona Getmanchuk told some secrets of the inside kitchen.
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Andrew Hill, Head of Cooperation, Delegation of the European Union
“We are aware of all coordination issues. We discuss them internally, with government officials, with our colleagues in the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, and with donors. We can assume that in most of these areas, we see progress and we continue developing a plan in cooperation with the Government of Ukraine. The process of reforms should proceed in partnership with the donors and government institutions; however, the government should set its priorities in order to coordinate the reforms. The donors, in turn, should be flexible and committed to supporting those reforms.

I would like to stress three main points. First, is the donors’ authority. Clearly, the initiative for reforms should come from Ukrainian side, i.e. the Government and civil society. The role of the European partners is to support those changes. We will continue working in various directions. Still, there is a certain limitations context, as Ukraine is an independent and sovereign state. The European Union does not have aid model suitable for any case.

Furthermore, mechanisms matter, not only the institutions. There are different mechanisms, from large scale budgetary aid and microfinance support up to technical assistance. The more flexible budgetary aid is based on the needs of each sector and is developed together with government institutions responsible for the respective area. There are always possibilities to change certain parameters, and we discuss these issues with government representatives. We base our support on specific terms. The “more for more” approach is becoming more and more efficient in our routine. Let’s take the financial aid tranches as an example. They are based on terms of the International Monetary Fund, as well as on the direction towards pushing reforms in certain sectors.

Last, but not least, is coordination. Surely, coordination between the National Reforms Council and other agencies and institutions is the main obligation of the Government. Today, we see significant progress in this direction. The European Union helps the Government in harmonizing the priorities for reforms and monitoring implementation of those reforms. Nevertheless, we are not only monitoring the reforms, but also looking at practical measures required for supporting specific reforms. The European Union often lacks vision, and some international donors work more efficiently. The EU has a complex bureaucratic structure, in particular, due to large number of monitoring mechanisms, and also an insufficiently refined system. Still, we possess long-term crisis strategies for specific areas, which were approved in cooperation with the Government of Ukraine. However, despite those strategies, long-term programs should be developed with various donors in order to avoid contradictory decisions; those programs should be coordinated in cooperation with the Government, which in turn should coordinate that activity with the donors,” said Andrew Hill in his speech
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Kalman Mizsei, Head of the European Union Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform in Ukraine, Jana Shindelkova,Special Envoy for Eastern Partnership, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and Pavel Buchek, Deputy Head of Mission of the Czech Republic Embassy to Ukraine
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On the presentation the Institute of World Policy used the TweetBeam for more comfortable sharing the own thoughts and comments among the participants.
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Dmytro Shulga, Director of the European Initiative program of International Renaissance Fundation.
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Daria Kalenyuk Executive Director of the Anticorruption Center
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Volodymyr Fesenko, Head of the Center of Applied Political Studies “Penta”
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This report was prepared within the project of the Institute of World Policy “New European Policy: Filling the Information Gap”.
This project is implemented under Ukraine National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms (UNITER) program, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Pact Inc. IWP also expresses its gratitude to International Renaissance Foundation (IRF), Think Tank Fund (TTF), and Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine (SIDA) for conducting the research.

The Institute for European Politics and Reforms (Moldova) in partnership with Institute of World Policy organized the round table “Minorities and the construction of inclusive society: Moldova, Ukraine and international practice” in Chisinau on the 23-24 November.On 23rd November, Ukrainian and Moldova experts had a discussion about a situation with integration of national minorities in social and political life of both countries in a format of working-seminar.

Ukrainian delegation was presented by Nalalia Belizer, Pylyp Orlyk Institute for Democracy, Julia Tyshchenko, Head of program for civil society development, Ukrainian Institute for Political Researches, Julia Serbina, Ukrainian peacekeeping school, Olena Zakharova, Analytics and External Relations Officer ICPS, Leonid Litra, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of World Policy and Daria Gaidai, Researcher at the Institute of World Policy.
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On 24th November, national minorities issues were discussed by the high-level paticipants of the round-table. In overall, more than 60 experts, diplomats, cabinet of minister’s officials, journalists took part in the event. The second day of discussion began with opening remarks by Pirkka Tapiola, the Head of the European Union Delegation to Moldova, Ulrike Knotz, Ambassador of Germany in Moldova, Ambassador Michael Scanlan, Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova and Leonid Litra, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of World Policy.
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Earlier discussion about protection and integration of national minorities in Moldova and Ukraine was on 26-27 August in Kyiv this year.

The project is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.

Leonid Litra and Ivane Chkhikvadze presented the draft analytical paper “Membership perspective for Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine: Impossible, Forgotten or Hidden?” within the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum in Kyiv, on November 20, 2015.“The result of the reforms in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine could be described as insufficient for sustainable change and Europeanization, but enough for an officially recognized EU membership perspective. Therefore, the three associated countries need to prepare the bid for EU membership by setting up a special task-force that would prepare the application and would study the Balkan experience”, – said Leonid Litra, presenting the draft of his research.

As the authors noted, this paper is not questioning the right of the three countries to apply for the EU. Instead their attempt is to find out the conditions for officially recognized membership perspective for Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia.

In the draft analytical paper, authors assume that the problems with membership exist on both sides. While it is difficult to influence the issues in EU MS, it is however, mandatory to fix issues in AA countries. Creation of task force in each state dealing with problems that prevents them from applying to membership perspectives. In each of the country the task force will be dealing with mapping the out how should the EU membership bid be planned, what would be the narrative and how to counter the arguments of the euro-sceptics, but certainly if no progress on reforms will be done, then it is unlikely that the building narrative would be positive.

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“The result of the reforms in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine could be described as insufficient for sustainable change and Europeanization, but enough for an officially recognized EU membership perspective. Therefore, the three associated countries need to prepare the bid for EU membership by setting up a special task-force that would prepare the application and would study the Balkan experience”, – said Leonid Litra, presenting the draft of his research.

To download the paper click here.
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“This paper is about European perspective for the best performing countries of eastern partnership – Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. At this paper we are stressing several issues – wether the perspective was impossible or it was forgotten or it was hidden. The main idea is that however good the implementation of the EU agreement in these countries is there won’t be any kind of clear offer for the european perspective and than membership for them”, – said Ivane Chkhikvadze, answering the question about the draft policy brief.
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The draft analytical paper was presented by Leonid Litra, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of World Policy, and Ivane Chkhikvadze, Open Society Foundation (Georgia) within “New European Policy: Filling the Awareness Gap” project supported by “Ukraine National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms” (UNITER) project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the Pact in Ukraine.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Ukrainian.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in partnership with the Institute of World Policy organized study visit for 13 European and American thought leaders – representatives of the best EU think tanks, international organizations, and prominent journalists.This study visit was part of the German Marshall Fund attempt to develop a common vision and strategy for the Black Sea region. During November 8-13 high-level delegation from the EU and US took part in few dozens of meetings, firstly in Moldova (Chisinau and Tiraspol), and later in Ukraine (Odessa and Kyiv).

Members of the delegation met with key officials, diplomats, representatives of civil society to learn from first hand about the political, economic and social development of both countries.

Participants of the visit: Alina Inayeh, Director, Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, Romania, Thomas Melia, CEO Democracy International, Jackson Diehl, Deputy Editor, The Washington Post, Ursula Palash, Senior Advisor of Strategic Planning European External Action, Reinhard Veser, . editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Paul Pyetzhak, director of analysis in the Office of the President of Poland, Ilze Milta, relations with Russia and Ukraine, NATO, George Aston, . Deputy Chairman of Task-Force Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Tim Judah, Journalist, The Economist, UK, Ross McLaren, Coordinator, Program of Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, USA, Mirya Peterson, regional director for Eastern Europe, Swedish International Development Agency, and others.

Ukrainian part of the working visit started in Odessa, where members of the delegation met with local experts, journalists and representatives of the regional administration and the regional election commission.
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Meeting with Olga Gorjeeva, the Head of the Odessa Regional Election Commission Odessa Regional State Administration.
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Working lunch with Sergei Dibrov, journalist, Pavko Kolotvin, Institute of Political Information and Eugene Popov, Representative, Soros Foundation in Odessa
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Meeting with Deputy Governor of the Odessa Regional State Administration Maria Gaidar.
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Visit to the Center for providing administrative services in Odesa.
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Working dinner with Mikheil Saakashvili, Governor of the Odessa Regional State Administration and Yulia Marushevska, the head of Odesa’s
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Working lunch with Geoffrey R. Pyatt, Ambassador, Embassy of the United States, Thomas Frellesen, Deputy Head of Delegation, Delegation of the EU to Ukraine, Dr. Christof Weil, Ambassador, Embassy of Germany and Ertugrul Apakan, Ambassador, Chief Monitor, OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine
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Meeting with Artem Sytnyk, Head, National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
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Talk with Igor Zhovkva, Head of the Main Department for Foreign and European Integration of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine.
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European and American experts discussed the problems of Ukraine from the inside point of view of the Ukrainian leading journalists.
Tetiana Sylina, Chief editor, Weekly Mirror, Tetyana Nіkolayenko, Chief editor, INSIDER, Olexiy Mazuka, Host of “Donbass-reality” to “Radio Svoboda” and Victor Shlinchak, the Head of the information-analytical agency “Glavcom”.
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Meeting with Reanimation Package Reforms representatives: Olena Halushka, RPR international relations manager, Daria Kaleniuk, Executive Director, Anticorruption Action Centr; representative of the Reanimation Package of Reforms and Vadim Miskyi, Coordinator of expert group, Reanimation Package of Reforms.
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Meeting with the Country Director Roland Kovats.
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Dinner discussion with key representatives of the business community Andy Hunder, head of American Chamber of Commerce and Vasile Tofan, Horizon Capital
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Breakfast discussion with MPs: Ivanna Klimpush-Zinzadze, Iryna Gerashcenko, Ostap Symerak and Maria Ionova,
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Meeting with representative of the Crimean Tatar People – Rafat Chubarof.
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Working lunch with Oleksandr Lytvynenko, Deputy Secretary, National Security Council of Ukraine.
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Meeting with Natalia Jaresko, Minister of Finance in Ukraine
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At the end of the day the delegation had the meeting withAivaras Abramovichus, Minister of Economic Development and at the 6 p.m. Meeting with Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime Minister of Ukraine

Sorry, this entry is only available in Ukrainian.

Alyona Getmanchuk, Director of the Institute of World Policy, took part at the Riga Security Conference that was held on the 6 – 7 of November. Alyona Getmanchuk acted as a moderator of the evening Ukrainian panel “Strengthening Ukraine’s European roots”.
Speakers were H.E. Mr Geoffrey R. Pyatt, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of United States of America to Ukraine, Dr Peter Balás, Head of Support Group for Ukraine, European Commission, Ms Orysia Lutsevych, Manager, Ukraine Forum, Chatham House, the United Kingdom and Mr Oleh Rybachuk, Chair and Co-founder of Centre UA
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Alyona Getmanchuk also met Celeste Wallander, adviser to US President Barack Obama on Russia and Eurasia isuues. The main topic of the conversation was the US-Ukrainian relations.
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Riga Security Conference is the authoritative international forum. This year it was jubilee and held for the tenth. The conference was dedicated to geo-economics.

The International Exhibition of Political Cartoons has been opened at the Odessa National University on the 6 of November.The project is implemented by the Institute of World Policy and NGO «Euforion» (Slovakia) with the support of the International Visegrad Fund.

Adress: Franzuskyj Bulvar, 24/26, the Humanities Building of the Odesa National University. The exhibition will last till November 30.
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There are more than 30 works of the famous cartoonists from the Czech Republic (Pavel Resenauer), Slovakia (Martin Shutovec), Hungary (Csaba Varga), Poland (Andrzej Mleczko), Ukraine (Oleg Smal), Georgia (Giorgi Gamezardashvili), and the USA (Daryl Cagle). Each cartoon represents author’s understanding of the problems and challenges of the modern world.

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The main idea of the project is to present political cartoon as a critical and independent genre and to present the works of premier cartoonist to the Ukrainian public.