When Ukraine’s newly elected president Petro Poroshenko was inaugurated on June 7, he announced his intention to sign an Association Agreement (AA) with the European Union and to pursue EU membership once the EU agreed to it. This last qualifier is particularly relevant, as opportunities for membership are not only constrained by Ukraine’s political and economic development and by Ukrainian- Russian relations but also by important formal and informal barriers to European integration stemming from within the EU itself. Given the size of Ukraine’s population, quality of governance, rule of law, problems with corruption, level of economic development, and now the country’s unsettled borders, the EU is unlikely to accelerate Ukraine’s path to membership. Even in a more stable environment, challenges to Ukraine’s accession to the EU remain quite significant, given the lack of enthusiasm for continued enlargement among EU member states and the procedural and structural hurdles that exist on the European level.
