European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos notes that the annual enlargement report does not contain a specific date for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
“At the current stage of Ukraine’s accession process, we cannot say exactly when it will be able to join the EU. The roadmaps presented in our enlargement report outline plans for the period until the end of 2027. After that, we will see how quickly the country can move forward,” she said at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, answering journalists’ questions.
According to Kos, the roadmap concerns the completion of negotiations on some clusters and the opening of new ones. “If Ukraine meets the IBAR (readiness assessment report) requirements, and the chances of this are high, it will be able to close up to seven negotiating chapters as early as next year,” the European commissioner reiterated the forecast she had made the previous day during the presentation of the report to the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.
For her part, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas added that Ukraine “certainly still has many steps ahead.” “It is also important to work with the public. After all, when we talk about security, it becomes clear that Ukraine’s integration into the European space will significantly strengthen our common security. The experience Ukraine has gained on the battlefield, the capabilities it has developed and the expertise it possesses — all this indicates that, for our security, it is extremely important to move forward on the issue of Ukraine as quickly as possible,” she explained.
EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, EUROPEAN UNION, KAJA KALLAS, UKRAINE, МАРТА КОС
