EMBRACE POLICY DEBATE: PRESENTING EXPERIENCES FROM UKRAINE

On June 25, 2025, the research results, which were gathered by the UESA team within the Horizon project "Embracing change: Overcoming obstacles and advancing democracy in the European Neighbourhood" (EMBRACE), were discussed with the expert community online. In the first presentation, Dr. Tetiana Kyseliova highlighted lessons learnt from the Minsk process concerning the inclusion of civic society representatives into the peace negotiations, stating the sensitive nature of such practices for the peace deal and peace deal implementation in the society. In the second presentation Dr. Dmytro Koval and the UESA young researcher Andrii Latsyba focused on cases of the judiciary reform and NABU creation as two case studies on enhancing democratic institutions in Ukraine to test the concepts of opening and blockages to the democratisation reforms in Ukraine, discussing NABU being described as the positive outcome after the revolutionary events in Ukraine and the judiciary reform being described as having rather mixed achievements with a tendency to failure. Dr. Roman Petrov addressed the involvement of external actors in the domestic scene as forces that were supporting the democracy development in the country or opposing the democratisation processes. The event was moderated by Dr. Oksana Holovko-Havrysheva, the UESA President.