EU decides to start accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova and grants candidate status to Georgia

On December 14, the European Council decided to start negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova on accession to the European Union and also granted EU candidate status to Georgia. This was announced by EU President Charles Michel on his X account.

In his turn, he noted that negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina will be launched “as soon as it reaches the required degree of compliance with the membership criteria”. Michel called on the European Commission to submit a report by March in order to make such a decision. According to him, today’s decisions are “a clear signal of hope for the peoples of these countries and our continent”.

In its turn, Hungary, which insists that the decision on Ukraine is untimely, boycotted the vote in the person of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “Ukraine’s membership in the EU is a bad decision. Hungary does not want to participate in this bad decision!” he commented.

As a reminder, Ukraine and Moldova became EU candidates on June 23 this year. At the same time, Georgia was denied such status. All three countries submitted their applications after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Ukraine on February 28, and Moldova and Georgia on March 3. Bosnia, on the other hand, applied back in February 2016 and was granted candidate status only on December 15, 2022.

As set out in Article 49 of the EU Treaty, any European country that respects the values set out in Article 2 of the Treaty and is committed to their promotion may apply for membership in the Union. The decision to accept a new member is made by the European Council unanimously after consultation with the European Commission and obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

Thus, only Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia currently have the status of “just a candidate” in the EU. In addition to Ukraine and Moldova, four other candidate countries are in the process of negotiating accession to the Union: Montenegro (since 2012), Serbia (since 2014), Albania and North Macedonia (nominally since March 2020, actually since July 2022). At the same time, negotiations with Turkey, which gained candidate status in 1999, are frozen.

We should also recall that on December 14, Kosovo also applied for EU membership, which is not recognized by five of the 27 members of the Union (Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Romania, and Greece), as well as by the candidate countries – BiH, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, and Serbia, which claims it as its territory.

Tags: Ukraine, EU, Georgia, Moldova