CONSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE ASSOCIATION PROCESS BETWEEN UKRAINE AND EUROPEAN UNION: MEANINGFUL AND IMPLEMENTATING ASPECTS

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to research the process of constitutionalization of associative relations between Ukraine and European Union. The authors distinguish and reveal two significant aspects of this process: meaningful and implementing.
 It is determined that the meaningful constitutionalization by its essence is the constitutional modernization, where the meaningful updation of the Constitutional provisions is being made in order to form the constitutional pillars for further democratization of social and political life in Ukraine, the approximation of the national political and legal system in accordance with the European values and principles, the improvement of the internal legal framework. The implementing aspect of constitutionalization means the purposeful formation of constitutional preconditions for the implementation of Association Agreement’s provisions to the national legal system. The authors stipulate that the fulfillment of both meaningful and implementing constitutionalization of Ukraine's association with EU shall be implemented mainly by incorporating of this process directly into the context of the constitutional reform in Ukraine.
 The article analyzes the organizational and legal measures aimed at the realization by Ukraine of its European integration purpose and determines that such measures should be carried out by three fundamental directions. Such tendencies include: 1) reformation of the meaningful and implementing principles of the Fundamental Law of Ukraine in order to ensure the constitutional support of this process; 2) concretization and detalization of the constitutional norms and principles in legislation (primarily, in those legislative and bylaws that refer to the harmonization of national law with EU law); 3) legal and law enforcement activity of national public authorities, and especially judicial bodies of constitutional and general jurisdiction, in order to ensure the implementation of Association Agreement’s provisions.
 The special attention is paid to certain problems of the reformation of Constitution of Ukraine ensuring the European integration. The authors express the critical reservations related to the amendments to the Constitution with the provisions of strategic orientation of Ukraine for the long term perspective.
 The authors conclude that the implementation of constitutional reform and the establishment of associative relations with the EU are two interrelated processes. Therefore, only a high-level synchronization of measures carried out within these areas, the determination of their priorities, the coordination and concordance of current tasks will allow to develop a comprehensive strategy of a constitutional reform and provide a holistic nature to constitutional transformations.