Ukraine’s ambitions of joining the European Union received an important boost on Wednesday when the bloc’s executive body said detailed negotiations should begin next year,
CNN reports.
The European Commission said in a report that so-called accession talks should finally start, nearly 18 months since the bloc accepted Ukraine as a candidate state. The same report recommended that the process should also begin with Moldova, which borders Ukraine.
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “Today is a historic day, because today the Commission recommends that the Council opens accession negotiations with Ukraine and with Moldova.”
Von der Leyen was speaking on the same day that the Commission published a report suggesting to EU member states that accession talks should finally start, nearly 18 months since the bloc accepted Ukraine as a candidate state. The same report suggests that accession talks with Moldova should also begin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who applied for EU membership in February 2022, shortly before Russia invaded his country, welcomed Wednesday’s announcement.
“Today, the history of Ukraine and the whole of Europe has taken the right step – the European Commission has recommended starting membership negotiations with Ukraine. Despite all the difficulties, we are moving forward,” he said.
“Ukrainians have always been and remain part of our common European family. Our country must be in the European Union. Ukrainians deserve it both for their defense of European values and for the fact that even in times of full-scale war, we keep our word and develop state institutions,” he said, adding that “all the necessary decisions are being adopted.”
While the decision to open negotiations with Ukraine is an important step on Zelensky’s path to EU membership, talks will not begin until a set of conditions have been met. With Ukraine currently at war, it is unclear and unlikely that those conditions will be met any time soon.
And although Ukraine welcomed Brussels’ suggestion that talks open and fully expects the 27 EU member states to agree and adopt the position later this year, the recommendation comes with some caveats that will be hard for Kyiv to swallow at this exact moment in time, particularly around the issue of fighting corruption.
The European Commission said in a statement: “The Ukrainian government and Parliament demonstrated resolve in making substantial progress on meeting the 7 steps” required for negotiations to open.
A senior EU diplomat explained that while member states have taken “the political decision to open negotiations, the actual negotiations will only begin once the conditions are fully met” – which at this point could still be years.
