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Four of seven conditions met for Kiev’s EU accession talks — paper cites draft report

The media explains that the start of negotiations now depends on the improvement of the situation with minority languages, the allocation of funds for the fight against corruption and progress in the transparency of lobbying

MADRID, November 7. /TASS/. The European Commission (EC) believes that Ukraine has complied with four out of the seven conditions put forward by Brussels to start the EU accession process, the Spanish newspaper El Pais said referring to a draft confidential report of the EC.

Kiev must complete reforms in seven important areas to align its system and administration with the EU’s. In June, Brussels said two conditions had been met. Now the EC believes that Kiev was able to meet two more - the reform of the Constitutional Court and the implementation of anti-money laundering measures.

The paper explains that the start of negotiations now depends on the improvement of the situation with minority languages, the allocation of funds for the fight against corruption and progress in the transparency of lobbying. The EC believes that Kiev has made progress on the reforms needed to start EU accession talks. Thus, Brussels is preparing to ask EU member states to give the go-ahead to continue the discussion on Ukraine's membership and start a dialogue in early 2024.

According to the newspaper, the teaching of minority languages such as Hungarian or Romanian at school and their presence in the media may become an obstacle to unanimity within the EU. In particular, Brussels has found "a number of unresolved problems" in the Ukrainian law on minorities regarding the Hungarian, Romanian and Russian languages in the media and education system.

On February 28, 2022, Kiev applied for EU membership and the EU summit on June 23 granted EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova. To start the process of negotiations, the countries must meet a number of conditions, including reforms.

On June 22, the European Commission's preliminary report on Ukraine's readiness for EU accession talks was presented, according to which Kiev had fully met only two of the seven conditions for starting the process - passing legislation on judicial reform as well as on media freedom.

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Ukraine crisis Ukraine EU

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