LONDON, June 21. /TASS/. Ukraine will be ready to begin talks on joining the EU in the near future, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said in London on Wednesday, speaking at the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2023.
"Ukraine should become a member of the European Union as soon as possible," he said, stressing that in spite of the conflict with Russia, Ukraine had made progress on all criteria.
"Ukraine will be ready to start accession negotiations soon. If this is the case, the EU should also be ready by the end of this year, after the regular autumn enlargements report," the top Polish diplomat added, emphasizing that the expansion of the EU is a bilateral process.
The European Commission’s report on the EU’s enlargement will assess the degree of readiness of candidate countries, including Ukraine, to begin accession negotiations. The document will be published in October. According to the Politico newspaper, by now Ukraine has more or less fulfilled two out of seven criteria for the beginning of talks.
On February 28, 2022, Kiev applied for EU membership and the EU summit on June 23 granted EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova. The timeframe for launching talks on Ukraine’s accession to the EU has not yet been determined. Earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said that the country’s authorities were hoping to join the EU within less than two years after launching talks. That said, President Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged that some world leaders see Ukraine in the EU no earlier than in 10 years.