How Brussels plans to negotiate Ukraine's EU accession
Another milestone has been passed on Ukraine's path to EU accession negotiations. After some hesitation and attempts to delay the process, the European Commission has finally provided member states with the draft negotiating framework - the regulation governing the forthcoming accession process. It will be identical for both Ukraine and Moldova.
Read more about a detailed analysis of a confidential document in the article by Sergiy Sydorenko, European Pravda's editor - Kyiv will take the Albanian path to EU membership: details of Ukraine's negotiating framework emerge. The European Commission has decided not to reinvent the wheel: essentially, the Ukrainian document has been copied from the latest framework currently in force for Albania and North Macedonia. We compared it with the document for Ukraine and Moldova and found only a few different provisions in 20 pages of text.
An important detail: Brussels approved Albania's framework in 2020, and it was fundamentally new at the time. But the experience of Albania and North Macedonia is not encouraging. The EU did not agree to open negotiations with them until 2022, two years after the framework had been approved.
Kyiv and Brussels are convinced that Ukraine will not face such a long wait. "There are two scenarios," a senior EU official told European Pravda on condition of anonymity. "The less realistic one is that we will start in March. The more realistic one is that the intergovernmental conference will take place in June, after the European elections."
The choice of the "Albanian" framework has both advantages and disadvantages. One advantage for Ukraine is the certainty that negotiations will start in principle, and this will happen very soon. The disadvantage for Ukraine is the lack of ambition inherent in the old approach to negotiations.
But the framework drafted by Brussels gives no grounds to hope for lightning-fast negotiations. Fortunately, it doesn't. For one thing, further changes to the process are currently in preparation to facilitate Ukraine's European integration.
There are also no guarantees of success: everything will depend on the reforms that Kyiv is required to carry out. In addition, Ukraine will have to prove to Brussels that it is determined to combat corruption in each specific area. Another important detail: the framework very clearly provides for Ukraine to be penalised in the event of any backsliding in reforms on the fundamentals - right up to the freezing of negotiations on individual chapters or as a whole.
We cannot ignore the elephant in the room, which is that even if all the reforms are carried out perfectly, the principle of consensus in the EU remains. Orban and others still retain their veto, and there is no hope of that changing. But there is one initiative that could reduce the level of made-up claims from our neighbours.
Next week, the EU General Affairs Council will discuss a German-Slovenian initiative that proposes to amend the enlargement methodology so that the decision of a qualified majority will be sufficient to open negotiation chapters.
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