Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Tuesday 31 May that granting candidate country status to Ukraine did not have the approval of the ‘big’ EU member states, apart from his own.
“Candidate country status is objected to by almost all the major EU countries, if not all, except Italy”, he explained after the EU summit. “Moving forward with candidate country status at this time is not something that can be expected, because of the opposition of these countries”, he added.