The EU will grant candidate status to Ukraine before the summer. But joining the Union is years, if not decades, away.
In two months, EU member states will have to make one of their most important decisions: should they grant Ukraine candidate status? On Wednesday, during his secretly organized visit to Kiev, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, promised that the European Commission would present its conclusions on Ukraine’s application for membership by the end of June. “So it is my responsibility to assess when we can put this issue on the agenda of the European Council and the Council,” Michel told a news conference after his meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian government had to answer around 3,600 questions from the commission in the course of this application. Member states are expected to grant Kiev candidate status before the summer; this is dictated by the political reality of the Russian war of annihilation against the Ukrainians. “You are not only fighting for the future of Ukraine’s children, you are also fighting for European principles and core values,” Michel said in Kiev. But it will be years, possibly decades, before Ukraine actually joins the EU. Four issues are likely to require particularly strong efforts by the EU and Ukraine to find lasting solutions.