After years of reforms, red tape, and former Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán blocking them, Ukraine and Moldova marked a historic milestone on Monday as formal EU accession negotiations finally got underway.
Gaia Neiman
The European Union opened the accession process for Ukraine and Moldova on Monday (15 June) after receiving a unanimous green light from 27 members states.
Chișinău and Kyiv applied to become candidate countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In a meeting with EU ministers, delegations from the former Soviet states will open the first cluster of negotiations out of six thematic chapters in the bureaucratic rulebook.
“I expect that we will open all the rest of the five clusters then in July” European commissioner for enlargement Marta Kos told the press at the meeting’s opening in Luxembourg.
“We will make an accession treaty also for Ukraine, for the time being we are in the process of making it for Montenegro,” added the Slovenian commissioner.
This first step was a significant advancement for both eastern European nations, since all substantial negotiations had been blocked by the pro-Moscow Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán until he was ousted from office in a landslide election defeat in April.
“Enlargement is a strategic choice,” said the EU Commission and Council leaders Ursula Von Der Leyen and António Costa in a joint statement, adding “a larger European Union is in our common interest.”
