Ukraine may get EU candidate status in June – Maasikas

Ukraine has a chance to receive a positive response to the request for the status of a candidate member of the EU in June 2022.

The relevant statement was made by Ambassador of the European Union to Ukraine Matti Maasikas in an interview with Estonia’s publication Postimees, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“Now we are even talking about weeks, not months. I think that the member countries will express their proposals in June, and the compliance of Ukraine with the Copenhagen criteria [criteria for accession to the EU adopted in 1993 – Ed.] will be recognized,” Maasikas said, answering the question about when a decision can be made after Ukraine fills in questionnaire provided by the European Commission.

In his words, the fastest response to a similar questionnaire filled out by a country usually took 8-12 months. Now the EU’s response to filling out the questionnaire is divided into two parts: the conclusion of the European Commission and the subsequent statements of the EU member states.

Maasikas expects that the general response will be positive and quick, but still calls for now not to speculate on the topic of what the European Commission’s assessment will be and how the EU members will react to the proposal of the European Commission, because the decision must be taken unanimously.

According to Maasikas, traditionally filling out the application for the status of a candidate country took several months. Now Ukraine has a desire to do it as soon as possible. On Monday, the EU Ambassador will meet with the Prime Minister of Ukraine to work on this issue.

Maasikas also stresed that “none of the enlargement steps [EU – Ed.] is easy or quick”. At the same time, “the lion’s share of EU legislation” is made up of issues related to the “internal market and its requirements.”

Therefore, Maasikas cannot imagine the situation that, relatively speaking, Ukraine is given the status of a candidate tomorrow, and in a year it becomes a member of the EU. However, in his opinion, the very status of an EU candidate is also a strong motivation for Ukraine.

According to Maasikas, the process that has begun and is ongoing is a huge leap in Ukraine’s European integration aspirations. Because “two months ago” (i.e. before Russia’s full-scale invasion), the granting of candidate status to Ukraine was not considered at all, since some members of the EU believed that it was pointless to discuss.

“In that sense, this is a huge step. But it still needs final confirmation,” Maasikas noted.

A reminder that, on April 8, 2022, while paying a visit to Kyiv, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen handed over a questionnaire for the EU candidate country status to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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