The EU executive will make a recommendation next week on whether Ukraine should be granted candidate status, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Such a recommendation would be a preliminary step on the long road to full membership, and Ukraine will need the support of all 27 EU governments before gaining candidate status. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for swift accession to the EU to provide the country with more security after the Russian invasion.
“We want to support Ukraine in its European journey,” von der Leyen told a joint news conference with Zelensky during a surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday. Heavy fighting continues in the eastern region of Donbass, where Russia is gaining increasing success.
“Today’s discussions will allow us to finalize the assessment by the end of next week,” Von der Layen added, adding that Ukrainian authorities had “done a lot” for the candidacy, but that “reforms are still needed”. applied, to combat corruption, for example ”.
Speaking with von der Leyen, Zelensky said the EU’s decision on Ukraine would “determine” Europe’s future.
“It is now being determined what the future of a united Europe will be and whether there will be a future at all. A positive response from the European Union to the Ukrainian application will mean a positive answer to the question of whether the European project has a future at all, “he said.
“The whole of Europe is a target for Russia, and Ukraine is only the first stage of this aggression,” he added.
Following Russia’s invasion on 24 February, senior EU officials, including Von der Leyen, who is making her second trip to Kyiv since the start of the war, have spoken out in favor of bringing Ukraine on a fast track to EU accession. candidate status.
And while a number of EU countries, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, have backed the calls, there are still doubts in Berlin, Paris and other Western European capitals as to whether the formal process can begin.
On Thursday, Bloomberg, citing a diplomatic note, said Denmark believed Kyiv did not meet enough criteria to apply for EU membership, saying the country “will need to fundamentally improve its legislative and institutional framework”.
Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron said it would be “decades” for Ukraine to join the EU, suggesting that Kyiv could join a “parallel European community” while awaiting a decision.
EU leaders are expected to further discuss Ukraine’s request at a summit on the issue a month later, along with requests from Moldova and Georgia.
Kyiv sees the chance to join the EU as both a symbolic and a strategic way to tackle its geopolitical vulnerability, after Zelensky earlier acknowledged that Ukraine would not join NATO.
Recent polls show that support for EU membership among Ukrainians has risen to 91% since the invasion began.
Russia, which has used previous pressure from Ukraine to join NATO to justify its invasion, recently said it considers Ukraine’s membership in the European Union equivalent to Ukraine’s accession to NATO.
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