“We are looking forward to next week, (…) which will mark the effective start of the negotiation process,” greeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.
:quality(50)/2023/07/06/64a68815cd1a7_placeholder-36b69ec8.png)
Published
Update
Reading time: 1 min
:quality(50)/2024/06/21/080-hl-afillon-2241953-66756e62d7815258740382.jpg)
The 27 countries of the European Union confirmed, Friday June 21, the upcoming opening of accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, announced the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU. Finance ministers adopted the framework for negotiations with these two candidate countries, confirming an agreement in principle reached by their ambassadors in Brussels last week. This agreement paves the way for the formal opening of negotiations on Tuesday in Luxembourg.
“We look forward to next week, June 25, when Ukraine and the EU will hold their first intergovernmental conference, which will mark the effective start of the negotiation process”greeted the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Millions of Ukrainians (…) are realizing their European dream”he said.
The heads of state and government had opened the way for such accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, two former Soviet republics, in mid-December 2023. But Hungary had until then slowed down the formal opening negotiations with Ukraine, judging that the conditions were not met.
The European Commission assessed, on June 7, that Ukraine and Moldova had fulfilled all the prerequisites for opening formal negotiations. The European executive had demanded measures from kyiv to fight corruption and the influence of oligarchs. The Commission had also requested better consideration of minorities, a measure insisted on by Budapest, due to the presence of a Hungarian community in Ukraine.
