Harmonization Of Ukrainian Commercial Law To EU Standards: Some Issues

Abstract

The articles is dedicated to the process ofUkrainian commercial law harmonization. It is emphasized that the main task in the field of improving the current commercial legislation is the doctrinal understanding of the process of its harmonization. The author makes a conclusion that the moment has come when the whole conglomeration of commercial legal institutions, legal principles and separate legal norms needs to be systematized and their expediency should be clarified.

Harmonization and approximation allow to unify the commercial law of Ukraine with the principles of EU law, to prepare a system of legal regulation of business entities to the requirements of European investors, to ensure better functioning of Ukrainian businesses for the EU market conditions. The EU policy towards Ukraine is quite cautious and it is not yet time to hope for Ukraine’s rapid accession and the EU membership.

The harmonization of economic law is important in this process, in particular the Commercial Code of Ukraine with EU standards. The idea of codification of norms of economic (business) law has become widespread in many countries around the world. In particular, the Western European legal tradition contains examples of the existence of commercial and civil codes. The legal community is well aware of the practice of enforcing these codes in Germany, France, Italy, Austria and other countries.

The author also stresses in order to achieve these goals, it is necessary to overcome certain barriers at the level of national legislation. One of these is the problem of unification of legal terminology.

An important problem is not taking into account the modern experience of legal regulation, trends in global reform of commercial law, which to some extent is obvious in most of the leading countries. Moreover, this trend is observed both in economically developed states and those that are just developing.

A serious barrier is the unmotivated borrowing of foreign experience. The use of so-called legal transplants without a clear understanding of the purpose of regulation and analysis of alternative models.

It is emphasized that the progress of Ukrainian commercial law approximation to the EU standards and accordingly simplification of the interaction of Ukrainian and EU business entities depends on a quick solution of the problems outlined above. Taking into account the globalized market economy implementation of foreign legal experience is inevitable. Nevertheless the priority should be given to the national legal traditions, considering national legal culture and mentality.