The coalition of non-governmental organizations “Reanimation Package of Reforms” welcomes positive recommendation of the European Commission to the European Parliament and the European Council regarding liberalization of visa regime for Ukraine and notes high efficiency of the Visa Liberalization Action Plan as an instrument for promoting key reforms in Ukraine which helped to achieve significant progress in the following areas:

• establishment of a system of anticorruption bodies – the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anticorruption Prosecution, whose activity is aimed at combatting political corruption among the senior officials;
•  prevention of corruption through establishment of the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption and launch of the system of electronic declaration of income and property of public officials;
• formation of the asset recovery legislative framework in line with the European standards.

At the same time, the RPR stresses: recent negative experience of reforming prosecution in Ukraine proves that old elites oppose systemic changes. In particular, they intimidate reformists and block the reboot of prosecutor’s offices at the local level. Therefore, it is essential to ensure further control and monitoring over the implementation of the reformist initiatives by the European Commission, EU member-states, and the Ukrainian civil society after the visa-free regime is granted.

One has yet to tackle the issue of establishment of a specialized anticorruption court to consider the cases within the jurisdiction of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anticorruption Prosecution. This is especially important during the transitional period before the comprehensive judicial reform is implemented, which requires the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine regarding judiciary to be adopted simultaneously with the package of implementation laws which should determine the mechanisms and deadlines for establishing/reorganizing courts, the procedure of competitive selection of judges of the Supreme Court and courts of appeal.

RPR experts believe: achievements in the spheres of anticorruption, law enforcement, judicial and public administration reforms are key for the success of all other reforms that are being implemented in Ukraine. Therefore, regress in these areas is inadmissible and should be considered as a violation of the VLAP.

RPR calls on the European Commission and European Union member-states to introduce a system of VLAP conditionalities post-monitoring after the visa-free regime is granted. It would become an instrument of pressure and a guarantee that the systemic reforms in Ukraine will continue until they are irreversible.