Digital Transformation and Energy Security as Complementary Mechanisms of EU–Ukraine Integration in Central and Eastern Europe

Анотація

Ukraine’s European integration increasingly operates through digital and energy systems that connect Ukrainian institutions and infrastructure with European standards and networks. This paper examines these processes through four dimensions of integration: legal and regulatory, institutional and administrative, infrastructural and market, and regional operational cooperation. It uses structured qualitative policy analysis with process-tracing elements and selected quantitative indicators, drawing on EU and Ukrainian institutional documents, Energy Community assessments, international reports, and academic studies available up to 20 June 2026. The evidence is strongest for digital public services, interoperability, cybersecurity cooperation, electricity-system synchronisation, cross-border exchange capacity, and regulatory approximation. The digital–energy relationship is best described as functional complementarity: digital systems support increasingly decentralised and interconnected energy infrastructure, while reliable electricity underpins digital public services and critical infrastructure. The paper does not identify an independent causal synergy effect. Regional evidence is strongest in electricity coordination and in differentiated cooperation with Poland and Romania. The analysis uses focused cases of Poland and Romania, supplemented by multilateral electricity-capacity coordination involving Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Its conclusions are limited by the absence of a counterfactual, the concentration of evidence in institutional sources, and the short observation period for many reforms; the paper therefore identifies documented mechanisms rather than estimating causal effects.