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Through its focus on EU Association Agreement negotiations, this book goes beyond the study of traditional EU trade negotiations and puts the spotlight on the increasing number of negotiations where trade relations are discussed alongside political ones. This setting makes both the negotiations themselves and the definition of the EU's positions more complicated, raising the question as to what ultimately determines the EU's behaviour in such complex negotiations spanning multiple of the EU's policy areas. Offering a generalizable analytical model to study such complex EU international negotiations, the book illuminates the preferences and interactions between individual parts of the EU's foreign affairs bureaucracy, and those between the lead actors, the Directorate General for Trade, and the European External Action Service (EEAS), in particular. In doing so, it demonstrates the utility of adapting the concept of bureaucratic politics from Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to the EU's foreign policy decision-making apparatus across different stages of EU international negotiations. It also discusses how the institutional changes of the Treaty of Lisbon have altered the institutional set-up of the EU's foreign affairs bureaucracy and thereby changed the foundations of the EU's bureaucratic politics. Finally, the book finds that the EU's behaviour in these negotiations is ultimately shaped, on the one hand, by the presence of diverging positions between its institutional actors, and the difficulty to bridge them through policy coordination mechanisms, on the other. Empirically, it explores these dynamics by considering the EU's Association Agreement negotiations on the Latin American continent over the last twenty years before demonstrating the analytical model's utility in the context of the EU's negotiations with Ukraine and Japan. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in EU foreign affairs/external relations, EU public administration and public policy, EU trade policy, and more broadly to Foreign Policy Analysis and International Relations.

This paper analyses the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA). It argues that this new legal framework, which has the objective to establish a unique form of political association and economic integration, is characterised by three specific features : comprehensiveness, complexity and conditionality. After a brief background of the EU-Ukraine relations, the following aspects are scrutinised: legal basis and objectives, institutional framework and mechanisms of enhanced conditionality and legislative approximation. In addition, constitutional challenges for the effective implementation of the EU-Ukraine AA are discussed. Based upon a comparison with other EU external agreements, it is demonstrated that the AA is an innovative legal instrument providing for a new type of integration without membership.

The purpose was to substantiate the features and determine an effective strategy for Ukraine's Eurointegration. Used a theoretical analysis of reports on the fulfillment of the terms of the European Union (EU)–Ukraine Association Agreement (AA), we identified the problems and destructive factors of the European integration for Ukraine. The graph theory helped to prioritize these problems in the context of implementing the AA's tasks. Constructed neural models and elasticity coefficients provided a quantitative assessment of the adequate performance of strategic functions within the framework of the AA for Ukraine has been carried out. Priority of conduction tasks argued the importance of implementing a strategy of moderate adaptation for Ukraine to increase the positive effect of cooperation with the EU and sustainable development of the country

Since the establishment of the three European Communities (the European Coal and Steel Community [ECSC] in 1952 and the European Economic Community [EEC] and the European Atomic Energy Community [Euratom] in 1958) four agreements of association with non-member states have been concluded. The first of these was signed by ECSC and the United Kingdom on December 21, 1954. The other three agreements, concluded by EEC with Greece, with a number of newly independent African states and Madagascar, and with Turkey, were signed on July 9, 1961, July 20, 1963, and September 12, 1963, respectively. During the last few years other countries in Europe and Africa have expressed a desire to become associated with EEC, and preliminary discussions that may eventually result in additional association agreements are now under way with Austria, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda. Only Euratom has so far refrained from negotiating an association agreement although the Euratom Treaty contains provisions identical to those of the EEC Treaty for the conclusion of such agreements.

The objective of this paper is to elaborate current and capital provisions in the European Union Association Agreements with the Mediterranean countries and their compatibility with the EC Treaty and the international multilateral agreements. These provisions can be classified into two categories. The first has fully liberalised current payments and demanded the progressive liberalisation of capital movement. The second has liberalised capital movements and demanded the progressive liberalisation of current payments. Accordingly, the outcome of this classification is that the Association Agreements, firstly, could not promote the liberalisation of current payments and capital movements in the Mediterranean countries. Secondly, they lag behind the virtual free movement of capital and payments among the parties. Finally, they could not recognise the relationship between current/capital transactions and the IMF, GATS and GATT.

The choice for Eastern Partnership countries between the Eurasian Customs Union (CU) and the EU with its Association Agreements (AA) (including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements) is a political decision: the CU will never go as deep into the structure of the economy as the EU-oriented AAs. To a large extent the CU has followed the set-up of the EU, albeit under the institutionalised dominance of Russia. However, many potential CU member states are reluctant to join, especially now, in view of the Crimea crisis. One may ask whether countries are free to join or not join the CU, such freedom being a condition for regional integration.

Acknowledgement: The University of Malta would like to acknowledge its gratitude to the Council of the European Communities. for their permission to upload this work on OAR@UoM. Further reuse of this document can be made, provided the source is acknowledged. This work was made available with the help of the Publications Office of the European Union, Copyright and Legal Issues Section. ; This paper refers to the agreement establishing an association between the European Economic Community and Malta ; N/A