The European Parliament will recommend that EU leaders grant Ukraine candidate status

At the summit on June 23-24, the European Parliament will recommend that the EU heads of state and government grant Ukraine the status of a candidate country for EU membership and purchase weapons for it to repel Russian aggression.

This was stated during the plenary session of the European Parliament on June 7 by the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee David McAllister, Ukrinform reports.

"We recommend providing Ukraine with weapons and all equipment, in accordance with the needs expressed by the Ukrainian authorities, and giving the country the status of a candidate country as a clear political signal of solidarity with the courageous people of Ukraine," McAllister said.

The head of the committee also outlined eight points of the European Parliamentʼs recommendations to the EU summit participants. All of them are somehow connected with the situation in Ukraine:

• rapid implementation of the EU Strategic Compass (this is a vague plan for how EU member states will coordinate their actions in the event of threats);
• reviewing EU missions and operations, adapting them to new geopolitical realities, in particular, to provide appropriate support to the governments of Ukraine and Moldova;
• swift completion of the third EU-NATO Joint Declaration, harmonization of the provisions of the EU Strategic Compass and the new NATO Strategic Concept, to ensure their complementarity;
• revision of the European Neighborhood Policy in order to assess in-depth the impact of the Russian war against Ukraine on cooperation within the Eastern Partnership;
• the active involvement of the European Parliament in the proper implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), including the implementation of the EU Strategic Compass and the European Peace Fund;
• providing the EUʼs Common Security and Defense Policy with adequate financial resources to increase its effectiveness and reliability.

• On February 28, after the start of Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed an application for Ukraineʼs accession to the EU.
• On April 8, in Kyiv, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen presented the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky with a questionnaire on Ukraineʼs membership in the European Union. On May 9, Ukraine completed the second part of the questionnaire to obtain the status of a candidate for membership in the European Union.