First, the eye catches the title of the document. Just recently, on February, 9, during the round table "Ukraine-NATO non-military cooperation as a joint response to hybrid threats", the representatives of the Ukrainian Government, experts and civil society actors spoke about the dфocument entitled "State program on informing the society on issues of Euro-Atlantic integration for the years 2017-2020," which was under consideration in the Administration of the President of Ukraine. Do you feel the difference? So, we have "cooperation of Ukraine with NATO" or "Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine"? The latter is repeatedly mentioned in the text of the Concept, but the word "integration" disappeared from the title.
The second stems from the first, it is obvious that the main responsible body for implementation of the Concept should be the Office of the Vice Prime Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine. Again, "integration", but not "cooperation". So, will Ukraine integrate into NATO or co-operate with it? Confusion with definitions (the Concept is not an exception) does not contribute to implementation of this important foreign policy course of Ukraine, because it remains unclear what Ukraine wants – cooperation or membership.
Third, it is not clearly defined in the Concept who must bring it to life. Moreover, Article 4 says that state authorities will only ensure its implementation and "...should provide full and comprehensive assistance to non-governmental organizations, activists and volunteers". So who is in charge? Does the Government reserve only coordinating role for itself and everything will be done by non-governmental organizations, activists and volunteers?
And lastly, implementation of any public policy requires resources: human, material, financial. The Article 5 of the Concept says that "...implementation of the Concept will be sourced from and within budget allocations provided to a central executive body, other state authorities for the relevant year, from other sources not prohibited by the Law". That is, at least for the current year, the funding for implementation of the Concept was not provided. Where will be money taken and will it be ever taken - it will become clear in a month, because during this period the Government should prepare a plan for implementation of the Concept. However, the second part of this Article indicates a more realistic way of implementation of the Concept by attracting financial resources of domestic and international business organizations, foundations, non-governmental organizations.
Thus, the main burden of information campaign will be again put on NGOs, volunteers and think tanks which have not only to communicate to Ukrainian population what NATO is, but also to study out the intricate wording of the Euro-Atlantic vector of Ukraine's foreign policy.
