EU accession: Ukraine presents legislation for key negotiation cluster to European Commission
On November 12, a bilateral meeting between Ukraine and the European Commission on Chapter 18, dedicated to statistics, was held in Luxembourg. The meeting was held as part of the official screening of Ukrainian legislation for compliance with EU law. This was the final chapter in the block of issues under Cluster 1, Fundamentals, which is key to the entire negotiation process.
This is reported by the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers, as relayed by Ukrinform.
Over the course of two days, the Ukrainian delegation, the vast majority of which were representatives of the State Statistics Service, presented to the European Commission and Eurostat the state of implementation of EU law in state statistical activities, the capacity of the Ukrainian state statistics authorities, methodology and data quality. The parties also discussed the expansion of the list of datasets that the State Statistics Service should transfer to Eurostat.
“Ukraine demonstrates every day that nothing can stop or slow us down on the way to achieving our strategic goal of membership in the European Union. I thank the negotiating teams for the high level of preparation and presentation of our country. We expect that the European Commission’s report on the results of the screening within Cluster 1 will allow us to open this cluster as soon as possible in 2025,” said Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and Minister of Justice of Ukraine.
Next week, bilateral meetings will begin in Brussels under the second negotiating cluster, Internal Market, which will focus on free movement of goods, freedom of movement of workers, business and services, competition policy, corporate law, etc.
As reported by Ukrinform, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell and European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi stated that the legislative screening is progressing successfully, and if Ukraine meets all the conditions, the Commission expects to begin negotiations on the clusters, starting with basic issues, as soon as possible in 2025.