Association Agreements with Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova on the roads to EU Membership

This paper has been produced by the Ex-post Evaluation Unit of the Directorate for Impact Assessment and European Added Value, within the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) of the Secretariat of the European Parliament, as a regional evaluation in parallel to the EPRS 2022 Peace and Security Outlook. It has been drafted as a contribution to the Normandy World Peace Forum taking place in September 2022. The paper provides the background to EU relations with Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine and analyses the most recent reforms achieved through the implementation of the association agreements in each country, up to the date of their applications for membership. Through an overview of the requirements for accession and of the EU's experiences with enlargement, and within the new context of the reframing of the EU's relations with its neighbourhood, the paper assesses the potential steps each of these countries could take to advance on their roads to EU membership.