From the very beginning, Prof. Haran positioned himself as a proponent of the integration of Ukraine into the European Union, and strongly advocated for it throughout his presentation. Although nowadays many ask themselves based on what grounds the Ukraine should be integrated into the EU, especially while the war is still ongoing, for him, the answer is quite clear: Ukraine is a part of the European territory, which is the reason why the country should also become part of the European Union. And the second, and most important one for him, is, as he puts it, the fact that Ukraine is currently fighting for European values in the full-scale invasion. The full-scale invasion is a full-scale violation of the most basic of those rights, so fighting back is, according to Prof. Haran, a way of defending those European rights – and, in a roundabout way, is one of the things that makes Ukraine a truly European country, worthy of being integrated into the EU, as the people have been wishing to do for a long time. In his opinion, Ukraine, despite its deficits in certain areas, already is a democratic country, and a EU membership could help them improve and even push further democratization measures.
One key moment in that process, according to Prof. Haran, will be the end of the year, when the EU officially decides whether or not to start the negotiations about the entrance into the union. When asked whether or not he thinks that is going to happen, he simply mentioned that he is „not a fortune teller“, however, he drew the attention of the participants to the two things that need to happen until that point: First of all, Ukraine needs to „do their homework“ in terms of what is needed to improve in order to even become a candidate – especially in the field of corruption. He mentions that civil society is pressuring the government, government is pressing the West, the west is pressuring Ukraine for reforms, but at the same time, many of the delays in the homework part seem to go back to the war: according to Prof. Haran, as Ukraine depends on military supplies in order to fight back the invasion and keep stability, which is needed to actually push through some reforms that would satisfy the EU, and according to Prof Haran, it is difficult to do counter defense when the supplies from the west are this low. But of course, he would consider it a very important signal towards the Ukrainian people if the EU green-lit the start on negotiations.
After the presentation, we continued thematically directly where he left off: with the European values and their basis – the Charter of Fundamental Rights. When we talk about European values, we usually refer to what is laid down in this Charter – a total of six different sub-points, sheaded ‘Dignity’, ‘Freedoms’, ‘Equality’, ‘Solidarity’, ‘Citizens’ Rights’ and ‘Justice. The participants were then sent to different breakout rooms and dealt with three selected paragraphs of the charter. In this context, the participants mainly exchanged their experiences with this paragraph – where did they see a good implementation in their everyday life, where did they see a violation? Where is there a need for improvement, where are the countries similar in the points, where are the differences in the implementation.
This workshop brought home to the participants once again how things like Human Rights, the EU and the current war in Ukraine are connected, and how complex these connections are. Even though there is still a lot to do, the participants agreed that the values of the Charter of Fundamental Rights are indeed fundamental for a peaceful coexistence, and can and must be defended even in times of war.
We thank all participants for their active participation and interest in the topic, as well as the expert Prof. Oleksiy Haran, for his insighful input!
Ukrainian Vibes is a project aimed to bring Ukrainian and EU citizens closer together, and share perspectives on European values and the potential for sustainable development in Ukraine. This year we plan to focus on bringing attention to the relevant and not obvious consequences of war and what every single one of us can do to protect Ukraine now and the world in future. The project is supported by the European Public Sphere and the AS volunteer program, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.