Since the beginning of this year, the European Commission has started awareness trainings, which precede the so-called screening, i.e., the assessment of Ukrainian legislation and procedures for compliance with European legislation and procedures. This work is carried out in all areas of European policies, primarily with representatives of our executive branch. At the suggestion of the Ukrainian side, the European Commission also allowed representatives of NGOs, the Parliament’s secretariat, some of its committees and assistants to MPs to join the training.
Such training is important for increasing the institutional capacity of public authorities. However, European integration is not only about the central government. It is a comprehensive process of transformations that should involve regions and individual communities. In fact, the European Union itself is often called “Europe of the regions.”
Viktoria Lobun, adviser to the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, emphasizes the importance of the regional level of governance for the implementation of common European policies, primarily the cohesion policy. This policy is the EU’s main institutional tool for reducing regional disparities and investing in sustainable and inclusive growth.
According to Lobun, task No.1 for the Ukrainian Government is to approve the updated State Strategy for Regional Development for 2021-2027. The European Commission’s report on Ukraine in the enlargement package of November 8, 2023, indicates a certain level of preparation in the field of regional policy. This means that the regulatory and institutional framework for regional development is only partially in line with the EU acquis. In February, the government approved an action plan, part of which relates to regional policy.
“Some regions have more and some have less understanding of European integration tasks. In fact, communication, clarification, live communication are very important, because some regions believe that this process is not quite theirs, it is somewhere far away, abstract, political. In fact, it is not. We try to explain it. And I want to emphasize that even in some very small districts there are good examples. If a community really aims to improve something, to study the experience of European municipalities, sister cities, then everything will work out,” says the Vice Prime Minister’s adviser.
According to her, now there is a mandate from the Prime Minister and a relevant resolution of the Vice Prime Minister to introduce the position of Deputy Head of the Regional Military Administration for European Integration into the staff structure of regional military administrations. A number of agreements have been ratified to expand the regions’ capabilities in terms of development and cooperation with the EU, studying European experience, etc.
At the same time, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the EU, is convinced that neither the presence of deputy ministers nor the presence of deputy heads of the RMA on European integration solves the problem of institutional capacity. “This is a cross-cutting story for the whole society. This is a cross-cutting story for the smallest community, for the youngest specialist in the smallest community. And this is a major task for the country, especially in such a bloody war,” Klympush-Tsintsadze said, urging not to believe in promises about Ukraine’s readiness to join the EU in 2 years. “It isn’t fair to make such promises to the Ukrainian people,” she stressed. “It isn’t even in our interests, no matter how strange it may sound. Why is it not in our interests? Because we have to prepare and be so competitive that when we enter the European Union, we enter as a strong EU member, with strong parts of our economy.” This requires long and hard work, accompanied by effective communication at every stage, reaching down to the smallest village.
Maria Fomenko, a specialist of the Association4U project, which helps the Office of the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration to raise public awareness of the essence of the relevant transformational processes, shared examples of successful communication of European integration to the general public. “European integration is about everything. People often do not even realize that some changes have happened thanks to European integration,” she says. In order to improve access to such information, the Association4U specialists have been working on filling the “European integration portal” – a website that contains analytical materials, infographics and all current information about the progress of European integration, as well as the opportunities it opens up for business, civil society, culture, education, etc. “We have updated this resource. It is now more convenient – it can be viewed on a mobile phone or tablet. We have an improved news search,” Fomenko noted.
Another communication tool that the Association4U specialist draws attention to is the European integration digest, which anyone can subscribe to. The idea is that every Monday subscribers will receive a selection of the major European integration news for the week.
“At some point, we realized that the European integration digest is more about how we are moving towards EU membership, about EU assistance to Ukraine, but this is not enough, because people are also interested in what is happening in the EU itself. And now we have another digest. It is called “EuroWEEK” and is devoted to the major news from the European Union. It is published every week on Saturday,” Maria Fomenko informed.
“We realized that some things could not be translated into Ukrainian, because they would not convey the essence very accurately, for example, the EU acquis, or screening, or self-screening. So we have made an infographic that will be updated. In it, we explain these terms,” the specialist notes, and calls on communicators on the ground to make maximum use of these materials in their work to explain European integration to the widest possible audience.
In the context of European integration communication in the regions, Fomenko says, it is important for local press services to disseminate information that is relevant to the needs of specific communities: “Most likely, these are EU cooperation and development programs that the regions can use, but very often they do not know how to do it and where to start. For this purpose, there are trainings and explanations.”
She also spoke about the experience of the communication campaign “European integration – the power of opportunities”. “In each region, we were looking for persons who are related to the use of opportunities provided by European integration. Some people have studied under the Erasmus+ program and can share their experience and inspire others. Some are involved in exporting honey, milk or socks to the EU and they are very popular there, and other small businesses fear that they will not be able to compete. Some people participate in scientific cooperation programs… That is, we need to collect success stories, because they are very inspiring especially in this difficult time of a full-scale war. It is necessary to share such success stories to effectively communicate European integration and for people and communities to repeat them,” Maria Fomenko emphasized.
In addition to the communication effect, such information campaigns help to create networks of like-minded people. After all, it is about creating platforms where people can get to know each other, share experiences, ideas, as well as create new joint projects. Experts in the field of European integration communication emphasize that the key task of such information is to encourage communities and individuals to act, or to make them believe in themselves.
