The future of Ukraine depends of its relations with the EU. What is the law governing accessions? How has it evolved through the history of the Union? What are the main challenges facing Ukraine on the path towards EU membership? The evolution of EU Enlargement Law as well as Article 49 TEU and the legal political framework surrounding accessions of new members across the different rounds of enlargement demonstrates that EU law is extremely flexible and the practice of its application - volatile. Delving into the modalities of pre-accession conditionalities demonstrates how challenging this approach can be. In the case of Ukraine it will not only be counter-productive, but also dangerous. Besides producing Poland and Hungary as members and thus failing to deliver on the core promise of lasting entrenched liberal democratic transition, ‘pre-accession’ is also not required by the Primary Law of the Union. A handful of successful EU enlargements was concluded without pre-accession. Given the moral imperative of offering Ukraine a European path as part of articulating the meaning of victory, as well as the dangers that yet another failed pre-accession would bring, it is evident that a new approach to regulating accession to the EU needs to be tested out in the case of Ukraine. This approach should be closely connected to the text of Article 49 TEU. A pure and clear application of this article without dubious pre-accession techniques like the ones sponsored by the Commission in the context of the latest enlargement rounds, would result in a de facto new and sped-up accession procedure serving the interests of Ukraine and the EU in the best possible way.

Professor Dimitry V. Kochenov heads the Rule of Law research at CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest and teaches at CEU Department of Legal Studies in Vienna. Dimitry's main focus is on the principles of EU law, comparative citizenship, migration, and the Rule of Law most broadly conceived. He taught Citizenship inter many alia at Princeton, Oxford, the College of Europe (Natolin) and UNAM. His last monograph, Citizenship (MIT Press, 2019) has been translated into several lanuages and reviewed in NYRB and the two edited volumes on the Rule of Law were cited by the Advocates General in front of the Court of Justice of the EU. Dimitry consults governments and international organizations on the subjects of his interest. https://people.ceu.edu/dimitry-vladimirovich_kochenov

This event is sponsored by the University of Chicago Law School's International Programs, The Malyi Center for the Study of Institutional and Legal Integrity, and International Law Society.

Lunch will be provided. Please submit dietary requests eight business days prior to the program to Aican Nguyen at aican@uchicago.edu. Although we will try to accommodate dietary needs, it is not guaranteed.