European Commission recommended starting negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova on EU membership

The European Commission has told EU member states that both Ukraine and Moldova have met the necessary criteria to kick off formal negotiations on their accession to the bloc, Euronews reports.

 

Ukraine has completed outstanding reforms related to stifling oligarchs and corruption, and protecting the rights of its national minorities, a Commission spokesperson confirmed on Friday, while Moldova has tied up pending its judicial reforms.

 

Whilst this means the start of talks should be imminent, diplomatic sources say the Hungarian government is currently blocking the move over concerns Ukraine is unprepared to join the 27-country bloc.

 

Before talks can kick off, member states must unanimously rubber-stamp the negotiating frameworks – which set out the principles and guidelines that will steer Brussels’ accession talks with both Kyiv and Chișinău – and also back the convening of an intergovernmental conference, the forum where talks begin.

 

“Now the decision is in the hands of the member states,” the Commission spokesperson said.

 

Last December, the executive said that membership talks with both countries could start once the loose ends in their ongoing reforms had been tied up.

 

That decision was then firmly opposed by the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán, who cited concerns over the levels of corruption in the country and the lack of measures to protect the rights of the Hungarian minority in the border region of Transcarpathia.