MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/. The Kiev regime is appealing to the European Union with a request for immediate accession under a new special procedure, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced on Monday.
"We are appealing to the European Union with a request for immediate accession under a new special procedure. We are grateful to our partners for being with us, but our goal is to be together with all Europeans and, most importantly, to be on an equal footing," he said on his Telegram channel.
However, Ukraine has not yet officially appealed to the EU with a request to give it the status of a candidate country for accession to the community, European Commission (EC) representative Ana Pizonero announced on Monday.
"There has been no official request from Ukraine," she said.
At the same time, she stressed that if such a request is made, it would have to be received by the EU Council. "As for the negotiation process on EU membership, the European Commission conducts it according to the mandate received from the member states. We do not determine our own mandate," the EC added, stressing that the decision to start the negotiation process for a country's accession to the EU must be taken by all 27 EU countries.
Additionally, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that the EU leaders’ current agenda did not include the issue of Ukraine's admission into the community, as the EU needed to focus on more practical things. He added that Ukraine clearly had a European perspective, but at the moment the EU's goal was to fight aggression.