“What’s Up With the Economy?” is a podcast by the Centre for Economic Strategy in cooperation with Hromadske Radio, supported by PrivatBank.
Every week, hosts Anhelina Zavadetska and Maksym Samoiliuk talk with experts, entrepreneurs, analysts, and government officials about what is happening with Ukraine’s economy.
While the podcast is held in Ukrainian, we decided to summarise each issue with the most important insights.
In this new episode, we take a detailed look at the European Commission’s annual enlargement report. This is a key document that determines the speed of Ukraine’s progress towards the EU. We discuss why comparisons with Moldova are incorrect, how the war has changed Brussels’ approach to assessing the Ukrainian economy, whether corruption scandals will harm us, and why Ukrainians will have to disclose more financial information in order to make free money transfers to Europe.
Our guest is Iana Okhrimenko, senior economist at the Centre for Economic Strategy (CES).
We have highlighted the most important points:
- Has Moldova really overtaken Ukraine in European integration?
Recent media reports have emphasized that Moldova has demonstrated higher rates of implementation of recommendations over the past year. However, Iana Okhrimenko stresses the importance of distinguishing between the concepts of progress assessment (reform dynamics) and readiness assessment (overall compliance with standards).
In terms of institutional readiness, Ukraine often outperforms its neighbors. The key difference lies in the scale of the economies. Moldova’s integration does not pose systemic risks to the EU and can be easily supported with subsidies. On the other hand, the accession of Ukraine, a large agrarian and industrial state, requires much more thorough preparation, which is why the European Commission’s requirements for Kyiv remain more stringent.
“And finally, compared to Ukraine, Moldova is not such a big deal for the European Union — its economy is objectively smaller. […] If Moldova joins the European Union, and neither the European Union nor Moldova are fully ready for this, everything will be okay. That is, the European Union will have enough power, including financial power, to smooth things over somehow. […] But with Ukraine, it will be a direct precedent. Therefore, again, this also affects the assessments, and they may be a little more measured and cautious than in the case of Moldova.”
- Overall progress: how does the EU assess the economy during the war?
Paradoxically, Ukraine’s ratings have improved in the 2025 report, even though business conditions remain critical due to the war. This may indicate a change in Brussels’ perspective. The European Commission is beginning to recognize that classic criteria (such as strict fiscal discipline) cannot be applied to a country that spends the lion’s share of its budget on defense and survival.
“You cannot expect a country in a state of full-scale war with huge war expenditures to comply with fiscal discipline as understood by the European Union. Again, it is impossible to implement energy reform in a country where the energy sector is under constant attack. […] Perhaps this indicates a shift in the EU’s internal priorities, that they believe: okay, fine, these fiscal rules may not be as important as we thought; that is, we allow certain concessions if you invest in infrastructure, defense, and so on.”
- The impact of corruption scandals (e.g., corruption scandal about Mindich, Mindichgate) on negotiations
The report was published even before internal corruption investigations in Ukraine.
The EU’s formal position is optimistic: exposing corruption shows that the anti-corruption system is working. However, Iana Okhrimenko warns about the political aspect. Each such scandal gives ammunition to skeptics within the EU and makes it more difficult for European leaders to convince their own voters of the need to accept Ukraine.
“Even Ursula von der Leyen said that we are proud that Ukraine is fighting corruption, that it is doing so publicly and at such a high level, and so on. So formally, I don’t think it was a problem, but we must take into account that the European Union is not some kind of monolithic structure. […] So I think that after this, it will be a little more difficult for the leaders of EU member states to sell Ukraine’s membership to their voters. In other words, in terms of reputation, this is not a very good story.”
- Does European integration mean the end of banking secrecy?
One of the conditions for integration is joining SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area). This will significantly reduce the cost of transfers for businesses, but requires Ukraine to implement European financial monitoring. Ukrainian society is highly sensitive to news about the creation of bank account registries, seeing this as an attack on privacy. Iana Okhrimenko explains that this is not the abolition of banking secrecy, but the introduction of European security standards, without which the movement of capital is impossible.
“The main thing to keep in mind is that this is not about how quickly we implement European legislation, but about how well it works for us. […] This is really necessary because we cannot join the European payment system if there is a risk that money will be laundered through us. This is the bare minimum we have to ensure.”
