Officials in Brussels insist on starting formal negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union as early as next month. This is reported by Politico.
Diplomats from the EU and Kyiv are working intensively to convince the Hungarian government to agree to start negotiations on Ukraine’s accession.
According to the publication, five diplomats said on condition of anonymity that the goal is to start official negotiations already on June 25.
EU leaders told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last December they wanted Ukraine and Moldova to join their club, bringing its membership to 29 countries. But due to Hungary’s opposition, the formal legal procedure for starting membership negotiations was delayed.
After the April negotiations between the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary Péter Szijjártó, “the parties noted the positive dynamics of the dialogue”. Kyiv was able to respond to the list of 11 points, which was laid out by Budapest, and expects a response from Hungary.
One of the EU diplomats suggests that Hungary will want to move the negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU before it takes over the six-month presidency of the EU Council in July.
“There was a sense of not doing this before the [June 9 European Parliament] election because it could become an election issue”, — said the EU diplomat, capturing the mood felt among many officials in Brussels.
The next step in the accession process is the start of official negotiations through an intergovernmental conference with Ukraine. This would mean the start of membership negotiations.
In order for this to happen, the EU countries must agree on the so-called framework of negotiations. According to the publication, after the European Commission sent this document in March, 27 capitals began arguing about this document.
According to the two diplomats, the negotiations at the technical level are going well. They expect that the new draft will be sent to EU ambassadors in the coming weeks so that they can resolve the most pressing issues.
Ukraine and its supporters in the EU are calling for an intergovernmental conference between Brussels and Kyiv before Hungary takes over the presidency of the EU Council on July 1. But, as one of the diplomats says, “as always, it is impossible to predict what Hungary will do until we hear from Orban himself”.
