The EU-Ukraine Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation: an assessment of Ukraine's readiness. OSW Commentary No. 45, 2011-01-17

The Action Plan on visas adopted during the recent EU-Ukraine summit is a success for Ukraine. It is the first time that Kyiv has succeeded in obtaining a definition of the conditions and criteria whose fulfilment will enable Ukraine to apply for the lifting of EU visas for its citizens. Ukraine's strong point has been its political will; the lifting of this visa regime has been a priority for all Ukrainian governments since 2005. Since Viktor Yanukovych became president, Ukraine has adopted or prepared key legal acts that brought it nearer to European standards in the area of border and migration management. One of Kyiv's strengths is also its relatively well reformed and efficiently managed border service. Moreover, illegal transit migration via Ukraine is decreasing, and fewer Ukrainians are trying to enter or stay in the EU illegally. Also, Kyiv has efficiently implemented the EU-Ukraine readmission agreement. The hardest task for Ukraine will be to meet the EU’s expectations concerning values, the condition of Ukrainian democracy, and the rule of law. Corruption remains the main barrier to Ukraine's development and modernisation; the courts are weak and the judicial system inefficient. The main undertaking of the new migration service that is being formed at the moment will be to create a civil system of registration, monitoring and regulating the stays of foreign nationals. This may prove difficult, as the supervisory authority (the Ministry of the Interior) remains an unreformed, police-type bureaucratic institution. Ukraine is lagging behind countries such as Russia, Belarus and Moldova when it comes to the introduction of biometric documents. Another problem is the lack of an electronic information system on foreign nationals, visas and border crossings which would be accessible to all the relevant services and institutions. For these reasons, the complete abolition of visas seems to be a longterm perspective, especially considering that many EU countries, which themselves are faced with the problem of migrants’ integration, are rather sceptical about the further liberalisation of movement of people with their eastern neighbours. In the immediate future, if Ukraine meets some of the requirements set by the EU, it will be able to seek the extension of the visa facilitations that have been in operation since 2008.

Elements of a complex but still incomplete puzzle: an assessment of the EU(-Turkey) summit. CEPS Post-Summit Analysis, 21 March 2016

The March 2016 EU Summit was yet another attempt to make progress on managing the EU’s migration/refugee crisis. In this post-summit analysis, Janis A. Emmanouilidis argues that the EU-Turkey deal, which foresees a return of migrants from Greece to Turkey and a direct resettlement of Syrians from Turkey to the EU on the grounds of a ‘1-for-1’ scheme, is a key and necessary element in a very complex puzzle trying to stop ‘irregular routes’ of migration. The ultimate success of this agreement is by no means certain, but it has the chance to reduce the number of people arriving at the shores of Europe. However, this would neither settle the crisis nor will it provide an adequate response to those in need of international protection. The ‘humanitarian imperative’ requires that the EU-Turkey deal is complemented by a much more ambitious direct resettlement scheme and other long-term measures as part of a comprehensive plan aiming to balance ‘solidarity and security’ in an effort to sustainably overcome the crisis.