EU officially recognizes Ukraine as a candidate for membership/Unsplash
Leaders of the European Union will soon approve the recommendation of the European Commission to grant Ukraine and Moldova candidate status for EU accession. This will happen at the summit in Brussels on June 23-24.
This is stated in the latest draft conclusion of the EU summit.
The publication notes that EU leaders will decide on further steps for the accession of countries after the full implementation of all the conditions set out by the European Commission, is added to the draft decision. The first assessment report on Ukraine's compliance with the conditions is expected as part of the regular review of the European Commission on enlargement by the end of this year.
The progress of each country on the way to the European Union will depend on its own merit in meeting the Copenhagen criteria, including the ability of the EU to accept new members, the draft conclusions also say.
Interesting! This wording speaks of that the EU does not intend to unite Ukraine and Moldova in one package, as it did with North Macedonia and Albania.
Several EU diplomats said that after several days of internal discussions, not a single country appeared in the EUamong the 27 EU member states, which would oppose the granting of candidate status to Ukraine. On June 17, the European Commission published its conclusions on the applications for EU membership of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, recommending that the first two be granted candidate status.
At the same time, 7 requirements were prescribed for Ukraine, which it must fulfill in order not to lose new status and move on to the next stage of the procedure.
What are the requirements
To be absolutely precise, we are not talking about the seven requirements of the EU, but about the seven blocks of reforms, the implementation of which the EU has determined as a condition for maintaining the status of a candidate.
- reform of the Constitutional Court;
- continuation of judicial reform;
- anti-corruption, including the appointment of the head of the SAP;
- anti-money laundering;
- implementation of the anti-oligarchic law;
- harmonizing audiovisual legislation with the European one;
- changing the legislation on national minorities.
Note that the last paragraph was written down to calm Hungary. It says that Ukraine several years ago promised to adopt a framework law on national minorities. Won't Hungary require the adoption of a law in an edition that will not suit Ukraine? Brussels assures that it is not.
What about Georgia
The wording of the EU summit on the issue of Georgia will be as follows: “The European Council is ready to grant Georgia the status of a candidate country after priorities indicated in the Commission's opinion on Georgia's membership application”.
