Kostyuchenko Y. Legal basis of association in relations of the European Union with third countries and international organizations and Ukraine.

The dissertation is focused to a comprehensive comparative analysis of the conceptual legal foundations of associations within EU practice, with particular attention to international legal analysis of the EU – Ukraine Association Agreement and its implementation in the domestic law of Ukraine. Studies of EU economic integration theories confirm that the European integration doctrine followed the practice, analyzing in in the terms political, economic, sociological categories, and testifying to the historical chronology of the integration processes development in the EU format. The theory of «Europeanization» is substantiated. It appears in two forms: the process of Europeanization within the European Union, and the extension of its right to third countries through the implementation of the association provisions into the rule of law of third countries. The main features of the Association Agreements in the EU’s foreign policy practice are highlighted. They are the introduction of enhanced cooperation between the parties, providing the privileged relations with the country concerned; involvement of a third country in the EU’s legal system through the adaptation of Union acquis and a mutually-based institutional structure. It has been proved that the Association Agreements with Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine were the first negotiations that were conducted based on the content of the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force on December 1, 2009. EU-Ukraine Association Agreement belongs to the new group of EU external agreements with European Neighborhood Policy states («fourth generation» agreement). Two main distinctive features differ from all EU free trade agreements. The first one is the innovative feature of the association agreement with Ukraine, which concerns numerous legislative provisions related to approaching market access. The second unique feature of the trading part of the Association Agreement with Ukraine is an unprecedented form of «integration» into the EU internal market in the field of services / creation and public procurement. Exceptional forms of legislative approximation of market access conditions and conditional full integration in several areas of the EU services and establishment, as well as public procurement market, have been determined. It has been proved that each chapter of the agreement has its own form of conditionality of access to the market and a mechanism to ensure a uniform interpretation and application of the unified EU legislation. It has been established that an integration-oriented agreement does not aim to prepare Ukraine for EU accession, but strives for «a gradual rapprochement of the parties, based on shared values and close privileged ties». It has been determined that the main legal mechanism for economic integration is the functioning of an in-depth and comprehensive free trade area, which is an integral part of association agreement. The mechanisms of ensuring the origin of goods as an element of the functioning of the free trade area have been studied. Several mechanisms for the implementation of association agreement, in addition to the normative regulation of the conditionality of access to the EU internal market have been noted: sectoral agreements, referenced by the text of the self-propelled guns; conditions and principles of trade policy are complementary to tariff regulation; and the regulation of other horizontal policies, among which are regional, social, energy and environmental policies.