HARMONISATION OF UKRAINIAN LEGISLATION WITH THE EU ACQUIS IN THE FIELD OF NON-BANK FINANCIAL MARKET REGULATION: INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ASPECTS

Abstract

The article examines the international legal foundations for harmonising Ukrainian legislation with the EU acquis in the field of non-bank financial market regulation. It is substantiated that the legal source of Ukraine’s relevant obligations is not the EU candidate status as such, but Article 133 and Annex XVII-2 to the Association Agreement, which set out the list of EU acts on financial services and the deadlines for their implementation. Candidate status and the opening of accession negotiations give the process political momentum and add the mechanism of negotiating benchmarks, yet they do not replace the treaty obligations arising under the Association Agreement.

The stages of regulatory approximation are traced: from the 1994 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, Article 51 of which for the first time listed financial services among the priority areas of legislative approximation, to the 2014 Association Agreement and the current negotiation stage – the first Intergovernmental Conference of 25 June 2024, the completion of the bilateral screening of legislation and the opening of Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals’ on 15 June 2026. It is emphasised that Cluster 2 ‘Internal Market’, which comprises Chapter 9 ‘Financial services’, remained unopened as of July 2026, and therefore the volume of legislative work completed before its opening will directly determine the content of the negotiating benchmarks and the timeframe for closing that chapter. On the basis of a comparison of the European Commission’s Analytical Report SWD(2023) 30 final with the annual Ukraine Reports for 2023, 2024 and 2025, a shift of assessment focus is identified – from building the basic legislative framework towards the targeted implementation of individual directives and the development of secondary regulation. Accordingly, the object of assessment changes as well: instead of the existence of a law, what is examined is the quality of the subordinate mechanism for its implementation and the institutional capacity of the regulator. The institutional consequences of the ‘split’ reform are analysed: it is shown that the reform did not consolidate supervision within a single authority, but redistributed the powers of the liquidated National Commission for State Regulation of Financial Services Markets between the National Bank of Ukraine and the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, which is of independent significance for assessing the completeness of the implementation of the EU acquis in the segment of non-state pension provision. The updated legislative framework of the market is characterised, and an example of targeted harmonisation is provided – the implementation of Directive 2009/103/EC as amended by Directive (EU) 2021/2118.