Politico: EU eyes green light for Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova in June
When EU leaders opened the door to Ukraine and Moldova in December, it was hailed as the first step in a historic expansion of the European Union. But the legal step required to kickstart membership talks for Kyiv and Chișinău was quietly delayed for months because of concerns about Hungarian opposition and jitters about making EU expansion a central theme of the European Parliament election, Politico reports.
According to five diplomats who spoke to Playbook and my colleague Barbara Moens on condition of anonymity, the bloc is aiming to start formal accession talks for Ukraine and Moldova as soon as June 25 (the date of a European Council summit).
Getting a formal go-ahead for accession to the EU would be a major boost to Ukraine, which is now in the third year of an all-out war against Russian aggression and struggling to keep its defenses intact in the face of relentless attacks. Kyiv’s rapprochement with Europe was a pretext for President Vladimir Putin’s move to yank Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit — so a path to membership looks like poetic justice.
After EU leaders gave Kyiv a political thumbs-up, the next step in the accession process is to start formal talks via an intergovernmental conference with Ukraine. That would represent the opening of membership negotiations.
In order for this to happen, EU countries have to agree on a so-called negotiation framework. The 27 capitals have been haggling over that document since the European Commission sent it to them in March. So far, the negotiations on a technical level are going well, two of the diplomats said, and they expect a new draft to be sent to EU ambassadors in the coming weeks so that they can hammer out the thorniest issues.
Ukraine and its backers in the EU have been calling for the intergovernmental conference between Brussels and Kyiv to be held before Hungary takes over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU on July 1.
