Bridging the Abyss? Lessons from Global and Regional Integration of Ukraine

Abstract

Multilateral and regional trade integration has become quite complex these days, very often involving states that pursue simultaneous economic arrangements, envisaging different liberalization and integration agendas. With such integration being so much intertwined, an obvious question arises whether concurrent participation of one state in several regional trade frameworks is legally and technically possible and which criteria should be met in this case. This article examines a particular example of Ukraine - a World Trade Organization (WTO) member - in its ongoing regional integration processes both to the West (free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU)) and to the East (Customs Union (CU) with Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia) through the prism of mutual compatibilities and WTO rules on regional trade integration. An assessment of the compatibility issue arising from various forms of economic integration has proved to be critical for the accurate analysis of any country's compliance with the WTO commitments. This article concludes that regional integration of Ukraine to the East requires careful considerations and structural redesigns. The recently discussed mode of integration into the CU would invoke legal and procedural difficulties for Ukraine in aligning it with the WTO rules as well as with its integration to the West. To this end, this article presents some practical observations concerning compatibility between Ukraine's different integration agendas and provides possible solutions to overcome legal problems arising thereof. The lessons derived from this article can be applied mutatis mutandis to other regional frameworks.