MIGRATION AND VISA COMPONENTS OF UKRAINE-EU COOPERATION IN TERMS OF ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

Abstract

Abstract. Recent revival of the Ukraine-EU visa relations has been caused by latest enlargements
of the Union and signing of the political portion of the Association Agreement. Due
to asymmetric EU and Ukraine visa regimes Ukraine’s goal lies in achieving a visa-free regime
for its citizens.
Visa policy is a part of the immigration policy external sphere (admission /immigration control)
related to immigration flows regulation. The broader interpretation of the concentric circles’
model introduced through Schengen co-operation allows for observing Ukraine’s changing
position within the framework of the European approaches to migration management. Ukraine
is gradually paving the way from the group of third countries experiencing high degree of institutional
closeness, to that represented by countries that have signed the association agreements
and achieved visa-free regime.
Ukraine’s progress in fulfilling the EU visa-free regime criteria is evaluated with the Eastern
Partnership Visa Liberalisation Index. Ukraine has a relatively high performance meeting
the EU criteria (the actual existence of the legal framework) and has been demonstrating the
readiness to pass on to the second phase of the Action Plan on visa liberalization, which can be
completed in a year according to Moldova’s experience. Therefore, the next year or two is a realistic
prospect of the EU-Ukraine visa-free regime entry into force. However, given the visa
policy place within the state migration policy, visa issues are just a narrow area of Ukraine-EU
cooperation in the field of migration. International migration issues should be addressed by the
set of measures aimed at the overall European integration.
Key words: immigration policy, visa policy, immigration control policy, the EU, visa-free
regime, the Schengen area, Action plan on visa liberalization, Eastern Partnership