“Ukraine Is Writing a Playbook on How to Reform During Wartime”

On October 21, 2025 New Europe Center organized the 4th EU Accession Exchange Forum in Kyiv – the key expert platform for all candidate countries for membership of the EU.

The Forum`s task is to exchange lessons learned in the process of accession talks and develop recommendations on how to make the EU enlargement process more effective.

“A strong Europe is impossible without a strong Ukraine. Likewise, a successful Ukraine is impossible without a successful European Union. Ukraine sees EU membership as one of the key guarantees of its future security. At the same time, Ukraine is already a guarantor of security for the entire continent“, Sergiy Solodkyy, Director of the New Europe Center, addressed to the participants at the opening of the Forum.

During his address Oleksandr Sushko, Executive Director of the International Renaissance Foundation, pointed out: “For the first time in many years, we see visible determination – both within European societies and among political elites – to move the enlargement process forward. Ukrainians do not have this naive perception of the European reforms that this is about simple solutions. This means that we understand the deepness of the process, that requires the endeavour of the whole society. And we want the whole society to be an owner of the EU integration process, not just a narrow circle of political elites”.

The discussion panels were devoted to the following issues:

the role of Ukraine in reshaping the enlargement process;
sectoral benefits and advantages of the new enlargement for the EU;
further development of security for Ukraine and Europe;
the question of fundamental reforms in Ukraine as a key prerequisite for the accession.

More than 100 participants took part in the 4th Forum, including heads and representatives of embassies, high-ranking officials and leading experts from both EU-candidates and EU-members states.

“Ukraine is writing a playbook on how to reform during wartime. It is using the wartime cohesion within society to push through reforms that were difficult to implement before the full-scale invasion. This is a situation where the logic is turned on its head: a society fighting for its national and physical survival is, at the same time, advancing reforms”, stated Katarina Mathernova, EU Ambassador to Ukraine.

“Ukraine does not ask for concessions. We ask for predictability. We need a clear and credible roadmap where every successful reform is rewarded with tangible progress. Not only through advances in the negotiation process, but also through deep access to the internal market, through broader participation of Ukraine in EU programs and with more structured financial support. And this is what we call a real merit-based approach”, emphasized Oleksandr Ilkov, Director General of the Government Office for Coordination on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Ukraine.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Chair of the Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the EU of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, underlined: “The basis of everything that is needed for successful accession is rule of law and anti-corruption: a set of values that is being honestly defended in the front lines, but not necessarily defended by the authorities in the policies. The point now is not about the chance of EU accession for Ukraine. It’s about the responsibility of actually making it a reality. Because we won’t have any other period in our Ukrainian history when the type of change that is needed for our accession could be passed through different stages of the Parliament or the government and so on. Because of the existential threat that we are facing right now and because of the actual window of opportunity that has been opened by this war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and against the free world”.

Stay tuned. Soon we will publish the most interesting messages of the 4th EU Accession Exchange Forum.

You may watch the full recording of the Forum below.

The EU Accession Exchange Forum is organized by the New Europe Center in partnership with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, the International Renaissance Foundation, and the Institute for European Policies and Reforms (Republic of Moldova), with Ukrinform and European Pravda serving as media partners. The EU Accession Exchange Forum is taking place with EU support, within the EU-funded “Whole-of-Society Accession” project implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation.