Yesterday at 18:58
European Commission has published an opinion on Ukraine’s application for EU membership, submitted by the President of Ukraine on 28 February 2022.
The document was prepared on the basis of Ukraine’s responses to the European Commission’s questionnaire on Ukraine’s compliance with the Copenhagen criteria for EU membership – political (democratic institutions) and economic (market economy).
The document acknowledges the huge work that Ukraine has done in the framework of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, in particular on regulatory and legal approximation to EU laws and pursuing a number of reforms. The opinion of the European Commission also states that the Government of Ukraine during the war “demonstrated a noteworthy resilience with macroeconomic and financial stability.”
Ukraine’s European integration progress has allowed the European Commission to positively assess the country’s application and recommend to the European Council on June 23-24 to grant Ukraine official status as a candidate for EU membership. The European Commission has also defined a number of conditions that Ukraine must meet before the start of talks on accession, including the fight against corruption, law enforcement reform, implementation of anti-oligarchic law and others.
“Historic moment – the European Commission has recommended granting Ukraine EU candidate status. It’s a clear acknowledgment of Ukraine’s transformations and reforms the country has carried out since 2014 implementing the Association Agreement and integrating into the EU. Candidate status will open up even more opportunities for Ukraine to accelerate this work. Yesterday, we heard that the leaders of Italy, Germany, Romania and France are ready to support this proposal at the European Council’s meeting. We count on a positive decision of all EU leaders in a week on the basis of the assessment presented by the European Commission,” said Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine.
