(Bloomberg) -- The European Union will move ahead “swiftly” with an initial phase of accession talks for Ukraine and Moldova during the first half of 2025 under Poland’s rotating presidency of the bloc, according to a senior official in Warsaw.
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marek Prawda said EU negotiators will open two areas of negotiations — on the rule of law and external relations — for the two applicants as the 27-member bloc grapples with a more turbulent security landscape in the coming years.
Still, with a total of 35 negotiating chapters and Ukraine still at war, any process is likely to take years, meaning EU membership will remain a distant prospect.
“EU enlargement is considered by us as a tool to help eliminate security gray zones,” Prawda said in an interview last week, citing talks with Ukraine, Moldova and countries in the western Balkans region.
Donald Trump’s reelection as US president and the prospect of a reduction in support for Ukraine has elevated the sense of urgency among European governments to confront security issues such as increased Russian aggression outside the US security umbrella.
That’s also put a renewed focus on the ambitions of Ukraine and Moldova to join the EU. Prawda said recent screenings showed “genuine progress” on accession, opening momentum to open the two areas, or “clusters,” which involve five chapters on the rule of law and another two on external relations in the first half of 2025.
The deputy minister’s comments amount to a more optimistic assessment for Ukraine especially. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has expressed frustration with signals from Poland blocking any fast-track EU accession. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has been vocal in insisting that Kyiv jump through all EU hoops — including a demand to exhume remains of Polish victims of a World War II-era massacre.
A Long Process
Prawda also said accession for the two countries won’t involve shortcuts — and that all commitments must be met. Only that way will Ukraine and Moldova win the support of all member states, which eventually must ratify the accessions, he said.
“In this context, very concrete matters — such as milk quotas or other agricultural and economic caps — are crucial,” Prawda said.
Ukraine and Moldova secured EU candidacy status in 2022, in the months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, and negotiations began this year. Croatia, the last country to join the bloc, took a decade before it was formally accepted in 2013.
“Given the progress that Ukraine has made on the path of reforms, as well as the results of the screening, we are ready to open two clusters during the Polish presidency,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said last week.
For its part, Moldova — a former Soviet republic wedged between EU member Romania and Ukraine — has had to deal with its own internal divisions. A referendum last month to eventually join the bloc was approved by a slim margin, dealing a setback to President Maia Sandu’s ambitions for integration with the West. Still, she was elected to a second term two weeks later.
Moldova’s chief EU negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Cristina Gherasimov, said moving forward with the accession process is crucial, because next year the country will face a bigger test when it holds parliamentary elections — which she called the “big prize” for Russian disruption attempts. Moscow has denied carrying out such activity.
“By showing that the EU is serious about enlargement and the negotiations moving forward, we will be able to disprove once more the Russian disinformation narratives about the EU,” Gherasimov told Bloomberg in an interview.
--With assistance from Lina Grau.
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