In other words, the EU will help Ukraine to become a more EU-type country.

But how does that work in practice?

One of the many mechanisms which exists to help countries integrating with the EU is what is called “Twinning”. This means experienced national organisations from EU member states get together and bid competitively to be granted the right to help develop government agencies and structures in countries which wish to integrate with the EU.

The successful bidders are then funded by the European Union to carry out the work. It sounds complicated and technical; and indeed it is. But it is from this type of detailed, nuts-and-bolts cooperation, repeated on a grand scale, that whole countries can be helped to move towards EU standards.

For an example of such a project, see this report about a recently-announced twinning project worth €1.5 million over the next two years to be implemented by institutions from the UK and Germany on “Further Development of National Accreditation Agency of Ukraine capacities according to European practices”.

Expect to see a lot more of assistance of this type if Ukraine’s integration with the EU proceeds smoothly over the months and years ahead. Today’s EU-Ukraine summit may give some indication of how quickly such integration is likely to take place.

Leigh Turner has been the British Ambassador to Ukraine since June 2008. You can read all his blog entries at blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/turnerenglish (in English) or blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/turner/ (Ukrainian)