Victim of Its Own Success (?) – The European Union's Anti‐corruption Policy Advice in Ukraine Between Grand Visions and (Geo)political Realities

Abstract

The European Union's (EU) external governance enjoys significant attention in the literature. Yet its outcomes are usually assessed with reference to strategic documents or scholars' self‐designed criteria. This article contributes to the ongoing debate with a discourse analysis focusing on the perceptions of anti‐corruption reform outcomes in Ukraine by actors on different levels in the EU. Simultaneously, structural factors are incorporated into the analysis. It demonstrates that although constant progress is officially proclaimed by the EU, even technical advisers disagree on how success in this crucial domain is understood and how to measure it. High‐level representatives face a balancing act between conditionality demands, sovereignty limitations and geopolitical considerations. This explains the official signalling by the EU and the development of its rule‐of‐law reform conditionality. The outcome is a potential state of moral hazard and raise the question whether EU external governance has not become a victim of its ‘own success’.

Corruption perception trends: European Union countries

“…The studies are applicable both to the EU as a whole and to individual European countries and regions, for example: "Institucional and legal basis of counteracting corruption: experience of the European Union and Ukraine" -whichallowed to distinguish three groups among the countries of the European Union: 1) highly developed countries, which have a high quality of life and low levels of corruption; 2) highly developed countries which provide high quality of life, but corruption is highenough; 3) countries with a high level of corruption and a relatively low level of qualityof life (Blikhar et al 2022); "Romania's Justice and Anti-Corruption Reform: A Stubborn Divergence from European Norms in Pursuit of Personal Gains" -the priority attached by the EU to the rule of law and justice reform can hardly eliminate the fundamental incentive for political corruption. A selfserving political elite remains unable to genuinely commit to the implementation of substantial anticorruption reforms (Martin-Russu et al 2022); "Phehomenon of corruption in Albania: towards cigarrete smuggling" (Raistenskis et al 2023); "The European Union's Anti-corruption Policy Advice in Ukraine Between Grand Visions and (Geo)political Realities" (Richter 2023); "Conditions for application of criminal liability to the board of a company in the legal system of the Republic of Latvia" (Teivans-Treinovskis et al 2022).…”