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2022 was a year of hard luck and deprivation for Ukraine. However, the outcome was the stronger aspiration of Ukraine and the Ukrainians to be fully integrated into Europe. The European Union was initially established as a customs union, and it still is.

The role of IT in the modern world is hard to underestimate. Technologies serve to speed up and improve the quality of data processing and to minimise human factor and deliberate manipulation of the data, personal information, and confidential information. In the area of public finance management (PFM), automatic data processing is critical to avoid corruption and tax avoidance. Also, as we all observed recently, IT is used as a weapon which may jeopardise the functioning of critical infrastructure, compromise databases or disable public institutions from providing essential services to the citizens or commercial entities. So why the EU-funded programme for Ukraine ‘EU4PFM’ supports several PFM institutions in Ukraine with the development of the Strategy on IT and digitalisation and why the strategy is needed at times of uncertainty and continuous attacks of russia on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine?   

The historic decision for Ukraine opening the possibility of joining international customs conventions on 1 October of this year was announced by the Ukrainian Government after participating in the 8th meeting of the EU-Ukraine Association Council in Brussels.

Ukraine has a unique chance to launch a programme for rapid synchronisation of its customs system with the EU customs system right now. In order to do this, it must decide that the development of its customs IT systems will necessarily include the plan according to which all EU countries develop their customs IT systems.

The successful preparation of Ukraine for accession to the Convention on a Common Transit Procedure (NCTS) will serve as a matrix for further steps to harmonize Ukrainian customs procedures with European ones.