The European Commission may recommend that EU Member States grant Ukraine conditional candidate status for EU membership, in its opinion expected on Friday 17 June. According to sources quoted by Bloomberg, the conditions would relate to the rule of law and anti-corruption legislation.
On Friday 10 June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for his country’s accession to the EU, calling for it not to be left in a “grey zone” that is “so tempting for the Russian state”. “In the coming weeks, the EU could take a historic step, which will prove that the words about the Ukrainian people belonging to the European family are not in vain”, he stressed at an international conference on democracy in Copenhagen.
“Why, if polls show that 71% of Europeans consider Ukraine to be part of the European family, are there still political sceptics who are reluctant to allow us to join the European Union?”, he asked.
EU leaders are expected to discuss Ukraine’s membership application, as well as those of Moldova and Georgia, at the summit on 23-24 June. On 31 May, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi stressed that granting this status to Ukraine did not have the approval of the ‘big’ EU member states (see EUROPE 12962/5). The Netherlands and Denmark are also reportedly rather sceptical.
Other countries, such as Poland, the Baltic States and Ireland, are said to be in favour of this status. According to Bloomberg, the solution for Germany could be a conditional status.
Support from the European Parliament
On Friday 10 June, at the conference on democracy, the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, said that her institution “strongly supports Ukraine in its quest for EU candidate status”. “Ukraine is already part of our European family but it is high time that it is also given a real opportunity to join our European project. This is about hope, acknowledgement of the price that Ukraine has been forced to pay”, she added.
The day before, the leaders of the European Parliament’s political groups called for Ukraine and Moldova to be granted candidate status (see EUROPE 12968/25).
On Friday 10 June, the chairs of the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee and the parliaments of 10 Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) called on Member States to “open up to Ukraine a realistic prospect of membership in the EU by granting it the status of candidate country at the forthcoming European Council”. “The majority of Europeans support Ukraine’s accession to the EU and an absolute majority of Ukrainians want Ukraine to join the EU”, they said in their joint statement. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)