One of the agenda items at the annual EU-Ukraine summit in Brussels on Nov. 24 was visa liberalization. Visa-free access to EU countries is one of the biggest incentives for Ukrainians – not just for the political and economic elites, but for a significant cross-section of the Ukrainian population at large. As a result, it has also been one of the concrete issues on which the EU has managed to exercise conditionality to incentivize reforms in its neighborhood.
However, the timetable for implementing visa liberalization for Ukraine remains unclear after the summit. The process has now reached a point where a delay in implementation would incur political costs – both in Ukraine and in Ukraine’s relations with the EU.
