81307506-Set-up and management of an Expert Platform for Ukraine's EU alignment in the Rule of Law, with focus on chapters 23 and 24 of the acquis communautaire

Strengthening Ukraine's EU Alignment in the Rule of Law is a project to assist the government of Ukraine in its efforts to align Ukrainian legislation with the acquis communautaire of the European Union, focusing on the negotiation chapters related to Judiciary and Fundamental Rights (Chapter 23) and Justice, Freedom and Security (Chapter 24) that lie at the heart of the cluster called the Fundamentals of EU Membership. The two chapters deal with the following topics:

- Chapter 23 "Judiciary and Fundamental Rights": Judiciary, fight against corruption, fundamental rights (including?anti-discrimination, the right to a fair trial, amongst others) and the rights of EU citizens (including the right to vote and stand for election to the European Parliament, the right to vote and stand for local elections, the right to settle freely within the EU).

- Chapter 24 "Justice, Freedom and Security": Border control, visas, migration, asylum, police cooperation, fight against organized crime and terrorism, cooperation in the field of drugs, customs cooperation, and judicial cooperation in criminal and civil matters.

The project aims at enhancing the capacities of key actors within the Ukrainian government to steer and implement a cooperative and participative process of the country"s EU alignment in the rule of law.

The implementation partners are the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine (DPMO) as well as the Government Office for Coordination on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration (GOCEEI) located at the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.These two institutions are responsible for the overall coordination and steering of the EU accession process.

At the same time, the project works with the key line ministries responsible for the implementation of Chapters 23 and 24. In particular, since the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will be leading on these chapters, a close cooperation has been established with the Deputy Minister for European Integration of the MoJ. The MoJ will be the main cooperation partner for any concrete work on legal approximation in the field of rule of law, i.e., chapters 23 and 24, but not the only one. Hence, the primeray beneficiary of this assignment will be the MoJ.

The above-mentioned government bodies are responsible for the coordination and implementation of the EU accession process but suffer from lacks of resources with the necessary expertise regarding the overall negotiation process as well as the concrete legal approximation work. With the aim to support these bodies providing the relevant advisory services for the up-coming processes and tasks, the project "Strengthening Ukraine's EU Alignment in the Rule of Law" works in the following three action areas:

- "Expertise": An Expert Platform pooling expertise on the most relevant clusters and chapters of the acquis for the rule of law will be established. The aim is to bring together renowned Ukrainian and international legal experts providing hands-on and needs-based but structured capacity building to those actors of DPMO, GOCEEI, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and related stakeholders concerned with the implementation of Chapters 23 and 24. Besides such a coaching or mentoring function, the platform is envisaged to carry out capacity development activities such as training courses, seminars and workshops as complementary measures, taking account of limitations in human resources the Ukrainian government currently has.

- "Experience": Facilitation of experience exchange provided specifically to DPMO and GOCEEI in the areas of strategic planning and coordination of the accession process, with a specific focus on topics related to the rule of law and promoting legitimate governance structures.

- "Exchange": Fostering high-level political exchange and multi-stakeholder dialogue at international and national level.