29,427 research outputs found
Conducting Business in the Ukraine 2016
[Excerpt] Since gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine remains a country in transition and its legal system continues to develop. Many changes occur these days, after the country signed an Association Agreement with the European Union. Conducting Business in Ukraine is intended to be a general guide for companies operating in or considering investment in Ukraine. It presents an overview of the key aspects of the Ukrainian legal system and the regulation of business activities in this country
Ukraine’s fight for its identity is more than a century old – it is not about to stop
For more than a century, Ukrainian nationalism has proved that it has not - and will not - disappear. This means that as well as refugee support the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations is also calling for concrete political assistance from Australia. This includes support for Ukrainian membership in the European Union, a #NoFlyZone over Ukraine and for business leaders to divest from Russia
The cultural and geopolitical dimensions of nation-building in the Ukraine
Ukraine belongs among those young countries where the beginnings of democratisation and nation-building approximately coincided. While the development of nation states in Central Europe was usually preceded by the development of nations, the biggest dilemma in the Ukraine is whether a nation-state programme — parallel to the aim of state-building — is able to bring unfinished nation-building to completion. Ukraine sways between the EU and Russia with enormous amplitude. The alternating orientation between the West and the East can be ascribed to superpower ambitions reaching beyond Ukraine. Eventually, internal and external determinants are intertwined and mutually interact with one another. The aim of the paper is to explain the dilemmas arising from identity problems behind the Ukraine’s internal and external orientation
THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN CRISIS AND THE ENERGY MARKET
The paper deals with the current crisis, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and events on the energy market. Emphasis is placed on the European Union since Russia is of strategic importance in the trade of major energy products. Namely, the majority of Russian energy exports on a daily basis is directed towards Europe. Nevertheless, Russia\u27s aggressive venture was strongly condemned by the member states of the European Union, which are also members of NATO. Guided by the purpose of a peace alliance, despite energy connectivity, the European Union introduced a series of restrictive measures. Thus, it took an economically quite hostile position. In response to the restrictions, Russia predictably manipulated the energy supply chain and threatened Europe\u27s energy survival. The European Union faced enormous challenges due to disturbed peace, social insecurity, energy uncertainty, inflation, threatened business and the gap between supply and demand. Therefore, this paper takes an analytical approach to this problem and analyses potential strategic solutions for both Europe and Russia. The end of the war is indefinite and still invisible, but what is doubtless is that the consequences in energy flows, strategic approaches and trends in the energy aspect will change forever
CONVERGENCE OF REGIONAL INNOVATION INFRASTRUCTURE OF UKRAINE AND THE EU
The article deals with regional innovation infrastructure as an innovative component of the
EU policy, analyzes its components, the possibility of integration of its structural elements into the infrastructure of Ukrainian regions as well as participation of Ukraine in European policies to
stimulate innovation development
Ukraine’s Exports as a Global Challenge for Its Future
Exports are critical for the highly open Ukrainian economy which is
characterized by the large trade deficit. Since independence the major consumers
of the Ukrainian products have been the CIS and the EU. Conflict with Russia
led to the significant decline of the volume of Ukraine’s export commodities. The
export analysis, based on the data provided by the State Statistics Service of
Ukraine for the period of 2010-2018 allowed to identify the problems and to
come up with possible solutions focusing primarily on the role of the Government
of Ukraine in strengthening cooperation with the EU. Firstly, it is suggested to
take the institutional steps aimed at expanding and deepening the integration
towards the common economic space with the EU, especially the common
customs space. Secondly, to explore the opportunities of exporting goods to the
countries, with which the EU has signed regional trade agreements. The third step
is related to the changing role of Ukraine in the global model of the
transformation of the world economy and requires the combination of close
cooperation with the EU, on the one hand, and the powerful economies, on the
other, thereby contributing to the formation of non-confrontational relations
between East and West
Beyond Frozen Conflict Scenarios for the Separatist Disputes of Eastern Europe. CEPS Paperback
This book forms part of a wider project on the relations between the
European Union and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, and in
particular the Association Agreements and Deep and
Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) between these three
states and the European Union.
The wider project was begun in 2015 in the aftermath of the
Maidan uprising at the beginning of 2014, which had been provoked
when President Yanukovich reneged over the signing of Ukraine’s
Association Agreement with the EU. Following Yanukovich’s flight
to Russia, the Association Agreement was duly signed later in 2014.
The agreements with Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have a
substantial common content, while differing in various details.
Overall, they provide an association model of unprecedented extent
and depth. Democratic political values are at the heart of the
agreements, while the economic content goes far beyond classic free
trade agreements to include a wholesale approximation of EU
internal market regulatory law. The purpose of our wider project was
first of all to explain the complex content of the Association
Agreements and DCFTAs, which was achieved in a series of
comprehensive handbooks published at www.3dcftas.eu.
However, the agreements contain only short and simple
articles on conflict prevention and management, without meaningful
operational content. This was notwithstanding the fact that the EU
considers itself, for its own historical reasons, to have a special
vocation in conflict prevention and resolution. In addition, Georgia
and Moldova were already the sites of unresolved separatist conflicts
originating around the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades
ago, namely Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and
Transdniestria in Moldova, to which we have added the case of the
Nagorny Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. On top of this legacy, the Maidan uprising led to the Russian annexation of Crimea
and its hybrid war in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of the Donbas.
The Donbas thus joined the old ‘frozen conflicts’.
In the light of the above, CEPS took the initiative to examine all
five unresolved conflicts, to assess where these disputes seem to be
heading, and what different scenarios could be imagined for their
future, including how the European Union might become more
engaged. Indeed, while none of the conflicts are resolved, none are
for that matter ‘frozen’. Our first practical priority was to find an
author to undertake a comprehensive study of the Donbas, since
conditions there make it practically impossible for any analysts from
the government-controlled part of Ukraine or from Europe to safely
enter these territories for research purposes. We were therefore very
fortunate to find Nikolaus von Twickel who had recently been
travelling in the Donbas as part of the OSCE Mission there, and is
now an independent analyst. For the other four ‘old’ conflicts we
were also most fortunate to bring in Thomas de Waal, who has been
a leading scholar of the region for some decades, and was willing to
bring the stories of these conflicts up to date. The two authors were
able to address the complete set of conflicts with a consistent
analytical approach, as will be evident from reading the sets of
scenarios.
We express our warm appreciation towards Sweden and the
Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) for their support
to the entire project.
This volume looks at future prospects for the string of unresolved
conflicts that continue to plague the post-Soviet world. Four of them
date back to the period when the USSR began to break up in the late
1980s. A new conflict, with many different elements and some
similarities, was added to the list in 2014: the Donbas in eastern
Ukraine. The open confrontation between Russia and Ukraine over
the Donbas and Crimea not only destroyed relations between
Moscow and Kyiv but changed politics across the region, shaking up
the dynamics of the four existing protracted territorial conflicts over
Abkhazia, Nagorny Karabakh, South Ossetia and Transdniestria.
The five post-Soviet conflicts are often called ‘frozen’, but this
is a misnomer. Although the peace processes around them often look
frozen, the situations themselves are anything but frozen and are
constantly changing. Two of them, over the Donbas and Nagorny
Karabakh, are either ongoing or close to violence. Each dispute has
its own history, character and context, which has grown more
distinctive over time and has been further shaped by the
confrontation over Ukraine. Each continues to evolve. Here we chart
scenarios for how these conflicts may develop further with the aim of
focusing policymakers’ thinking on which tendencies are dangerous
and which ones can be encouraged. There are many moving parts to
these situations and complacency is not an option
- …