Negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU can begin: European Commission releases report on Kyiv's progress in reforms

On November 8, the European Commission released a report on Ukraine, noting that Kyiv has made important progress on the seven steps set out in its June 2022 opinion and has taken additional measures to complement and consolidate these achievements.

Thus, the European Commission recommends to the European Council to start negotiations with Ukraine on membership in the European Union.

Now, the European Council, i.e. the leaders of the 27 EU countries, has to make the relevant decision.

The European Commission also recommended that the European Council adopt a framework for negotiations with Ukraine after Kyiv has finally completed the necessary reforms.

At a special press conference, the decision was announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Vargey.

As for Ukraine, they discussed the seven criteria that Brussels put forward to Kyiv back in June 2022, when Ukraine's status as a candidate for EU membership was approved. The European Commission believes that Ukraine has fulfilled more than 90% of these requirements.

In particular, these are the requirements regarding:

• legislative procedure for the selection of judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (based on the assessment of integrity, professional skills and in accordance with the recommendations of the Venice Commission)
• selection of candidates to the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine;
• strengthening further the fight against corruption, in particular at the highest level; appointing new heads of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau;
• compliance of Ukrainian anti-money laundering legislation with FATF standards; a strategic plan for reforming the entire law enforcement sector;
• an anti-oligarchic law to limit the excessive influence of oligarchs on economic, political and social life;
• overcoming the influence of vested interests by adopting a law on the media;
• completion of the reform of the legal framework on national minorities in accordance with the recommendations of the Venice Commission.

By putting forward these requirements, the European Commission reserved the possibility of revoking the candidate status in case of non-compliance.

Now that the EU has recognized Ukraine's progress in fulfilling the criteria, the next step for Ukraine is to start formal negotiations on EU membership.

Negotiations on the EU membership of any country begin only after a unanimous decision of all 27 member states that the candidate country has fulfilled all intermediate tasks and is ready to start negotiations.

It should be noted that Hungary is threatening to veto the start of negotiations with Ukraine on EU membership.