BTH and Lviv Polytechnic Are Mapping Ukraine's Path Toward the EU's Digital Regulatory Framework

Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) and Lviv Polytechnic National University in Ukraine have started a joint project to map what Ukrainian authorities and institutions need in order to apply EU rules on data protection, cybersecurity, digital resilience and artificial intelligence. The project, EU-DIGI-ALIGN, is funded by the Swedish Institute and runs from September 2026 to May 2027.

As part of its EU accession, Ukraine must align its laws and administration with the EU's digital rules, an area covered by chapter 10 of the accession negotiations. Ukraine has built advanced digital public services. The challenge now lies with the institutions: interpreting the regulations, coordinating between authorities, and turning EU rules into everyday administrative practice.

The project focuses on four EU legal acts: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the NIS2 Directive on cybersecurity, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the AI Act. During the autumn, the partners will analyze how far each has been brought into Ukrainian law, which authorities are responsible, and how the rules work in practice, including through interviews with Ukrainian authorities and regulators. The results will be discussed with Ukrainian and Swedish stakeholders at a workshop at BTH in the winter.

"Joining the EU takes more than new laws: the rules only work when someone in an authority knows how to apply them on an ordinary working day. Ukraine starts from a strong position, with digital services that have held up through the war. Together with Lviv Polytechnic, we want to find out where the capacity to apply the rules is already in place and where it still has to be built," says Roman-Valentyn Tkachuk, project leader at BTH's Department of Computer Science.

"For our department, the project is a way to bring EU regulatory practice into our teaching and into our work with Ukrainian institutions," says Vitalii Susukailo, senior lecturer at the Information Protection Department of Lviv Polytechnic.