From the Standing Group on
Young ECPR Network on Europeanisation (YEN)On 16 April 2026, our ECPR Standing Group, the Young ECPR Network on Europeanisation (YEN), held its fifth webinar, as part of its Online Seminar Series inaugurated in 2024. Ihor Moshenets (Central European University) delivered a talk on the Europeanisation trajectory of Ukraine’s energy sector.
In his talk, “Policy translation and resilience of institutional change: the Europeanisation of Ukraine’s natural gas market”, Ihor examined the role of competition among domestic economic and political actors in Ukraine’s liberalization process. He focused on developments from Ukraine’s accession to the EU Energy Community in 2011, with particular attention to the critical junctures triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The presentation explored the Europeanisation process across three sub-sectors of the Ukrainian gas market—unbundling, third-party access, and independent regulatory authorities. Ihor demonstrated how business oligarchs and bureaucrats shape policy translation, and assessed the extent to which institutional changes have proven resilient during wartime crises. He concluded by proposing a theoretical framework linking policy translation to critical junctures.
As discussant, Inna Melnykovska (European University Institute) further elaborated on these themes. Her reflections on institutions, local agency, and actor-bargaining provided valuable input for refining the theoretical framework presented in the talk.
The interactive Q&A session further enriched the discussion.
A
video recording of the webinar is available, you can watch it
here.
This webinar highlighted several important themes of Europeanisation: how local actors interpret, shape, and embed EU-led reforms under geopolitical pressures; the dynamics of Europeanisation in an accession country, particularly during critical junctures; the role of the Energy Community as an initial driver of EU-inspired reforms; sectoral integration with the EU; and alignment with the EU energy acquis in a transit country that has long played a crucial role between the EU’s energy-seeking market and Russia’s rich resource base.
We would like to thank the speaker, Ihor Moshenets, and the discussant, Inna Melnykovska, for their valuable contributions, as well as the participants for their engagement.
We look forward to welcoming you to our upcoming events.
