UAEUmeter showed a slowdown in Ukraine’s progress towards EU membership in Q2

In Q2 2026, the UAEUmeter EU integration progress index stood at an average of 0.76 points per month, up from 0.63 in Q1.

In April, the index reached 0.96 points — its highest monthly reading since September 2025. However, it fell to 0.54 points in May, the lowest level since monitoring began in September 2023. In June, UAEUmeter recovered to 0.78 points.

UAEUmeter is an index of Ukraine’s progress towards EU integration. It tracks developments across six areas that are critical to Ukraine’s economic alignment with the acquis communautaire: transport; entrepreneurship and industrial policy; social policy and employment; digital transformation; the free movement of goods and customs; and the rule of law. UAEUmeter is produced monthly by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (IER), the Bendukidze Free Market Center, and Ukrainian sectoral experts.

Each area is assessed across four components: setting the agenda, planned legislative changes, actual legislative changes, and the state of implementation. Developments are scored on a scale from -3 (negative impact) to +3 (positive impact), with 0 indicating a neutral impact.

April 2026 was the strongest month of Q2 for almost all areas. The digital transformation score jumped to 1.66 points, driven by the ratification of Ukraine’s access to the EU Cybersecurity Reserve and the adoption of the Digital Transformation Concept. Transport rose to 1.24 points, the free movement of goods to 0.82, and social policy to 0.88.

The rule of law also remained in positive territory at 0.71 points, although this was driven by a single factor: progress in the selection of Constitutional Court judges.

The only exception in April was entrepreneurship and industrial policy, where the score fell to 0.44 points due to the continued obligation to pay the military levy after the end of the war.

May saw a broad-based decline across almost all key areas of EU integration tracked by UAEUmeter. Five of the six areas recorded lower scores:

• Rule of law — the sharpest decline, to 0.04 points, effectively approaching zero amid a lack of significant developments in this area.
• Free movement of goods — down to 0.58 points, the lowest level recorded for this area since monitoring began in autumn 2023.
• Digital transformation — down to 0.72 points, also an all-time low.
• Transport — down by half to 0.56 points.
• Social policy — down to 0.69 points.

Overall, May was a month in which the EU integration agenda nearly stalled, with the rule of law showing the sharpest deterioration. The only area to improve was entrepreneurship and industrial policy, which rose to 0.65 points, driven by a draft law on the taxation of e-commerce and the Industrial Development Strategy.

In June, a partial but uneven recovery began. The following areas improved:

• Free movement of goods — up to 1.64 points, the highest level since April 2025, driven by the Customs Code and NCTS Phase 6;
• Transport — up to 1.26 points, following the adoption of the Railway Safety Law;
• Digital transformation — up to 0.87 points.

Meanwhile, two areas continued to deteriorate:

• Social policy fell further to 0.39 points, its lowest level since March 2025;
• Rule of law fell into negative territory, to -0.13 points. This was the third time since monitoring began in September 2023 that the indicator had turned negative, this time due to problematic provisions in the law on vetting judges’ integrity declarations.

The entrepreneurship and industrial policy score remained virtually unchanged in June at 0.63 points.

Overall, UAEUmeter showed uneven progress in Q2, with the rule of law emerging as the main factor weighing on the overall score. Nevertheless, the index remained above its Q1 average, suggesting there is room for faster progress in aligning Ukrainian legislation with EU standards.