“We do not accept the idea of the queue,” says Ukraine's ambassador to the EU regarding the country's European prospects
At the same time, Chentsov accepts that full-fledged European integration could take place only after the war
It was informed that on the eve of the summit, where European leaders must approve granting Ukraine the status of a candidate country for EU membership, Ukrainian Ambassador to the European Union Vsevolod Chentsov described Ukraine's European prospects and the timeframe in which they can be implemented.
Source. He stated this in an interview with the BBC.
Details. “We do not accept the idea of the queue. Every state has its road map, has its path. And if there is political will, if there is support of society [and] business operators to move forward to implement reform in a bold and fast way. Why should we wait?” Chentsov said.
According to him some Western countries (in particular Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) have been candidate countries for years, but have not yet noticeably come closer to full accession to the union.
EU leaders are expected to meet their Western Balkan counterparts on Thursday morning, ahead of the main summit, to “build on the existing close ties”, but discussions are expected to be difficult.
In addition some members of the EU are pushing for Bosnia to be given candidate status. The Ambassador of Ukraine believes that the probability of this is small so far, but we can count on progress in another issue – rapprochement with the European Union of Northern Macedonia and Albania.
Commenting on the pace of reforms in Ukraine, Chentsov accepted that full-fledged European integration can only happen after the war: “The real integration process will start when the war is over. Definitely it will take some time and we are talking about months, not years to get to the next stage.”
The Ukrainian Ambassador stressed: “We do not start from scratch.” He recalled the work done since 2014, when the EU and Ukraine signed an association agreement.
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