On March 22, 2024, a meeting of WG2 of the UNP “Economic integration and coherence with EU policy” was held online.
The purpose of the meeting was to “check the clocks” and coordinate current activities for 2024.
The meeting was held according to the planned agenda.
In the first part of the event, WG 2 coordinator Iryna Kuropas briefly spoke about her participation in the 2023 Forum Assembly. “First of all, I want to emphasize that in modern realities, democratization for our region is equal to Europeanization, and it is actually extremely important to work on strengthening the role of civil society in this process. Each of the countries of the Eastern Partnership is unique, they have different ambitions regarding the process of European integration, they go to it in different ways, reflecting unique historical, political and economic contexts. But it is important not to lose the identity of each nation“. Iryna Kuropas emphasized that during the event in Brussels, the participants also discussed the changes that took place in the policy of the Eastern Partnership and in the region in general after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine.
The participants of the meeting lively discussed their positions regarding the participation of Ukraine in this format of cooperation and the future role of Ukraine. Moldova and Georgia in the region. The main issue that concerns all participants is the reputation and benefits for Ukraine: what benefits can this be turned into for Ukraine, especially in such a difficult time. The participants decided to leave this question open and think about the proposal regarding their vision of the future format of the Eastern Partnership and the role of Ukraine in the region.
As part of the event, the Rebuild Business Joint Platform and the possibilities of delegation to it will be presented. Larisa Starikova briefly outlined the basic aspects regarding the creation of the Rebuild Business Joint Platform. “The international community highly appreciates Ukraine’s efforts to protect freedom and democracy. The countries of the EU and the world provide strong support so that we can win. But the international community is no less actively going to help Ukraine at the stage of post-war recovery. And today the question arises – on what basis will such support take place? How to ensure inclusiveness of business involvement, fairness and efficiency in compensation for damages? And most importantly, how to get out of the ruins to a new modern level of technological development? How to become a modern high-tech, socially and ecologically responsible country?” – said Mrs. Larisa. It was noted that the idea of the Integrated Business Reconstruction Platform is to provide the opportunity for free communication between business and resource providers and to support such communication with the professional services of project development consultants, translators, evaluators, lawyers, auditors, educators, trainers and mentors, specialists in independent evaluation of implementation results projects. It is assumed that the activities of the Rebuild Business Joint Platform will be based on an economic and organizational model that will ensure inclusiveness and sustainable functioning.
Another issue that was raised at the WG 2 meeting was regarding initiatives in 2024. Iryna Kuropas briefly provided the necessary information and emphasized that all initiatives should include the so-called cross-cutting topics, namely Gender, Digital, Green. Networking is also welcomed and encouraged – a joint initiative of several organizations from one group, involving organizations (experts) from another group of the UNP. Also, when planning initiatives, it should be taken into account that cross-cutting priorities such as: the consequences of the war or prospects for recovery and advocacy for EU membership should be reflected in the topics of the initiatives.
Information provided by Iryna Kuropas, UNP WG2 Coordinator
We thank Iryna Kuropas for organizing and conducting the meeting.
On that day and the day before, there were air strikes and a massive missile attack by Ukraine.
The event is implemented within the framework of the project “Support to the activities of the UNP EaP CSF in 2024”, funded by the European Union and implemented by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.
