EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE INTEGRATION POTENTIAL OF UKRAINE’S COMPETITIVE POWER IN THE EVENT OF POSSIBLE ACCESSION TO THE EU

Modern integration priorities for Ukraine necessitate defining and measuring its competitive power (CP) as an EU candidate country. One of the key objectives of competitive policy is identifying the factors that can enhance Ukraine’s CP, thereby strengthening its European integration potential. The study aims to develop a model that comprehensively examines the interdependence and interaction of parameters and components of Ukraine’s CP across global, regional, and national dimensions in the event of its potential accession to the EU. To achieve this goal, the study utilizes a special statistical indicator, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, as part of the regression-correlation analysis framework. The article provides an assessment of three main aspects: (1) Ukraine’s competitive potential in both global and regional economic systems; (2) dependencies within datasets representing ratings, as well as the variance in ranks of factor values (one of the components of the global CP index) and performance characteristics; (3) the reserve competitive advantages of Ukraine, which are evaluated by comparing actual and potentially possible values of the rank correlation coefficients of the components of the global CP index and its integral value. The calculation results indicate that Ukraine’s CP at the time of potential EU participation is low, primarily due to Ukraine lagging behind the EU members across a multitude of factors. This underscores the necessity for not only formal accession and legal unification but also a series of comprehensive reforms to attain tangible competitive advantages from participation in this integration association.