The approximation of the Ukrainian social legislation to the EU acquis in times of war: the key challenges for reforms

Abstract

The achievement of the EU candidate status by Ukraine during the war gave it a new impetus for providing further approximation of the national legislation to the EU acquis, including in the social sphere. Consequently, this research focuses on the analysis of alignment of the Ukrainian social legislation with the EU law in the pre-war period and scrutinises the European Commission's low mark of the progress made in this sphere after the beginning of the war. Considering the new challenges that arose due to the war, which highlighted the extreme importance of social protection, the authors outlined the key current problems in the social sphere in Ukraine and the main obstacles in providing social reforms in accordance with European social standards in the martial period of time. According to the results, the authors put forward their vision of whether social reforms are needed in Ukraine in times of war or not. Keywords: acquis, EU integration, social legislation, EU social standards, full-scale Russian aggression

Keywords

• acquis
• eu integration
• social legislation
• eu social standards
• full-scale russian aggression