An effective and professional civil service is the foundation of good governance, sustainable development, and Ukraine’s progress on the path to the EU. It is civil servants who ensure the daily implementation of policies, development of legislation, fulfillment of international obligations, and provision of services to citizens.

Therefore, their work must be transparent, accountable, and protected from political influence. This is the conviction of Andriy Zabolotnyi, an expert in the “Governance: Policymaking, Accountability, Civil Service” program at the Centre of Policy and Legal Reform.

In his analytical article, he examines the key aspects of civil service reform: its prerequisites, the EU’s vision, the current state of affairs, and the further steps needed to bring Ukraine closer to European governance standards. Read the full text on the Centre’s website. Below are the key points.

The EU and civil society clearly demand transparent and fair appointments of qualified personnel, yet the process still shows no visible results. Political influence over the civil service persists, and professionalism—even if proven during all stages of competitive selection—gets disregarded.

The EU’s Ukraine Facility Plan sets the following tasks:

• Civil service remuneration reform (a transparent, fair, and competitive pay system based on classification of all positions) with legislation to enter into force in Q1 2025;

• Merit-based recruitment (entry, service, and dismissal aligned with SIGMA/OECD Principles of Public Administration) with legislation to enter into force in Q3 2025;

• Civil service and HRM digitalization in Q1 2026 (with the Government shifting the deadline to Q2 2026).

By postponing these deadlines by one quarter, the newly formed Cabinet has effectively prolonged the possibility of appointments without competitive procedures. During these three extra months, appointees gain time to stay in office longer without undergoing a competition, bypassing the merit principle—a bypass further provided for in the government’s draft law registered in Parliament last month.

On July 15, the Verkhovna Rada registered a government draft law “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Resumption of Competitions and the Improvement of Procedures for Entry, Service, and Dismissal from the Civil Service,” signed by Prime Minister D. Shmyhal (reg. №13478).
Although this draft has formally been withdrawn, MPs have already submitted an alternative bill (reg. №13478-1), identical in content except for minor changes on required experience for membership in the High Civil Service Commission and the timing for restoring competitions—still long-delayed.

For years now, there have been over 30,000 vacant civil service positions. The staffing list includes more than 191,000 positions. At the same time, the lack of publication of all vacancies and the opaque selection of candidates show that civil service remains closed to those wishing to enter.

This problem is especially pressing for young graduates and students seeking their first job.

In December 2024, the Centre of Policy and Legal Reform presented the Concept Paper and Analytical Note “Civil Service in Ukraine: Directions for Reform and Development” at the Ukrainian House.
The document provided an overview of the state of the civil service, an analysis of key problems and challenges in this field, and proposals for its improvement in line with European principles of good governance and Ukraine’s best practices.

These modernization paths remain highly relevant before the launch of EU accession negotiations and could be taken as a basis by the Ukrainian government.

A positive step is that the new Cabinet has already made a few decisions aligned with the recommendations: Resolution №953 of August 8, 2025, places the National Civil Service Agency under the coordination of the Prime Minister. Earlier, Resolution №915 of July 30, 2025, assigned civil service reform to the competence of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration.

Civil service reform remains one of the most difficult due to the lack of political will to fundamentally change the current situation. The principle of “political neutrality” exists on paper but hardly works in the reality of administrative offices.

Support from the EU and the activism of NGOs can once again make a difference—just as after the Revolution of Dignity in 2015, when such cooperation helped adopt a new Civil Service Law aligned with European principles of good governance.

The “cardboard revolution” over the threat to the independence of anti-corruption bodies, as well as the scandal surrounding the prolonged non-appointment of the BEB director, highlight the crucial role of civil service for the functioning of the state both in peacetime and wartime—and underscore the need to shield it from political interference in practice. This time, it was not the law but society that became that shield.

Repeated reshuffles in the government and other institutions have kept civil service in constant uncertainty due to the lack of transparent entry rules and stable career progression. A new push for reform would give Ukraine an advantage on its EU path by ensuring the work of professional managers with expertise and institutional memory, which would help open the Fundamentals cluster of accession negotiations—covering rule of law, democracy, human rights, and public administration—bringing proper European practices into our lives more quickly.

There is still hope for reform. Seeing the government’s initiative to collect proposals for the new Program of Action, we will certainly submit ours—since, so far, “professional civil service” is missing from the government’s priorities.