Prospects for Ukraine’s integration into the EU labour market in the context of the Ukraine - EU Association Agreement

Abstract

Upon signature of the Association Agreement Ukraine has gained an opportunity to deepen its integration into the European labour market. Such integration plays an important role given the fact that about half of the labour migration is directed towards the EU and the share of remittances from the EU amounts to over 30% of total revenues from migrant workers. The Agreement stipulates that the EU and Ukraine shall make joint endeavours to tackle the root causes of migration, establish an effective against illegal migration while legally employed workers from Ukraine and the EU shall guaranteed equal rights and the need to expand the number of bilateral agreements on employment between Ukraine and the EU Member States is declared as well. The Agreement provides for separate provisions on temporary presence of natural persons for business purposes that allow for employment of “key personnel” as well as for rendering of commercial services under a simplified procedure of stay in the host country. However, liberalisation of access of migrants from Ukraine applies primarily to skilled migration that generally corresponds to the common trend of implementing the EU immigration policy today. However, the issue of access to the national labour markets of the main part of labour migrants from Ukraine still remains in the domain of bilateral relations between Ukraine and the EU host countries.