The European Union has officially begun preparations for the opening of the first cluster of accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova.
This was written on the page of the Cyprus presidency of the Council of the EU.
The statement added that in the coming days, the EU Council will complete discussions on the official opening of the cluster.
Earlier, Euractiv, citing a source, wrote that the European Commission wants to propose opening the first cluster of negotiations on June 16. This will allow EU leaders to finally approve this step at a European Council meeting two days after the meeting.
What are Ukraineʼs successes on its path to the EU?
Ukraine intensified cooperation with the EU in 2014, after the victory of the Revolution of Dignity. In the same year, the Verkhovna Rada and the European Parliament simultaneously approved the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. It entered into full force on September 1, 2017. Ukraineʼs path to membership in the European Union and NATO was enshrined in the Constitution in February 2019.
On February 28, 2022, Ukraine applied for membership in the European Union. On June 17, the European Commission recommended granting Ukraine candidate status for EU membership and set out a number of conditions that the country must meet before starting negotiations on EU membership. On June 23, EU leaders gathered in Brussels for a summit, where they granted Ukraine candidate status.
At the end of 2023, the European Union allowed negotiations to begin. They were formally launched in 2024, but the process slowed down, in particular due to the position of then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who blocked the opening of negotiation clusters.
In May, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposed an associate membership format without voting rights, but President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the idea, stating that Ukraineʼs membership should be full and equal.
Babelʼs sources reported that Ukraine expected to open the first cluster for entry on May 26, and the rest in June.
On May 26, The Guardian reported that the EU was considering temporarily limiting veto power for future member states to simplify the blocʼs enlargement process.
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