Almanac of law. Issue 16 (2025), pages 69–76.

DOI: 10.33663/2524-017X-2025-16-69-76

Kulynych P. F.
EU legal values and their implementation in the land legislation of Ukraine: current status, existing problems, prospects

The article examines the essence and content of the EU legal values as a general guideline for the development of Ukraine’s land legislation at the stage of accession to the EU. An analysis of EU law shows that it practically does not regulate land relations themselves. Since land use systems in EU countries differ in significant specificity, land relations are regulated mainly by the national legislation of EU member states. Therefore, each of the EU countries has established its own special legal regimes for land use and protection. It is proved that the main legal values to which the land legislation of Ukraine should be adapted are the fundamental principles of the functioning of the EU and the best practices of legal regulation of land relations in EU member states. The fundamental principles include the main imperatives, guidelines and moral and ethical principles of European integration, which have acquired the value of regulatory provisions and are reflected in the founding documents of the EU, which include the Treaty on European Union of 1992 and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union of 2009. To implement the basic principles of the functioning of the EU in the land legislation of Ukraine, it is proposed to adopt a number of new legislative acts, in particular, the laws: 1) On the transformation of the permanent use right to land plots into market-oriented rights to land; 2) On the abolition of free of charge privatization of land; 3) On mass land valuation; 4) On the admission of foreigners to the agricultural land market. It is also noted that the harmonization of the land legislation of Ukraine with the best practices of legal regulation of land relations is a more complexed problem than bringing the land legislation of Ukraine into line with the norms and principles of EU law, which are formally set out in EU legal acts and are available to the public. It is proved that the content of the best practices of legal regulation of land relations in the EU member states can be identified by analyzing the size of farmer’s land use in agriculture in the EU countries. One of such EU practices is the size of land holdings of farmers in the EU member states, which are significantly smaller than the land holdings of agricultural enterprises in Ukraine. It is proposed to adopt legislative acts to ensure the implementation in Ukraine of the practice of legal regulation of land use by European farmers. In order to bring the agricultural land use system of Ukraine in line with the best practices of legal regulation of use of agricultural lands in EU countries it is necessary to adopt a number of legislative acts, in particular: 1) The Law on Soil Protection and Restoration of Their Fertility, which will provide regular recording of the level of fertility of agricultural lands according to the system of its indicators in the State Land Cadastre; 2) The Law on State Control over the Use and Protection of Lands Using Remote Sensing Tools (satellites, aircraft, drones), which would introduce recording at the level of the farm fields of the level of land fertility available in a certain period of time according to the system of indicators of the qualitative condition of soils established by the Law. Such recordings of soil fertility should be carried out using remote sensing methods online on a regular basis. The conclusion is substantiated that the above-mentioned legislative innovations will contribute to a change in the economic behavior of domestic agricultural producers. Instead of monocultural cultivation of raw agricultural products, they will be forced to develop livestock farming as a source of organic fertilizers for fields, processing agricultural products into food products with high added value, as well as growing agrobioraw materials (perennial tree and shrub plantations) for the production of biofuels and other sources of green energy, which are required by the climate changes that have been ruthless to humanity in recent years. All this will not require agricultural producers to use large areas of land and will also contribute to the preservation and restoration of soil fertility.

Key words: European integration, EU law, EU legal values, adaptation of Ukrainian land legislation.

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