EU leaders agreed at a summit on Thursday to make Ukraine and Moldova candidates to join the bloc, a historic move by Brussels following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Today marks a decisive step on your path to the EU,” tweeted European Council President Charles Michel, who is chairing the leaders’ meeting. “Our future is together,” he added.
The symbolic step taken by Brussels in record time is a victory for Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his government’s highly pro-Western integration program.
In a video address, Zelensky said: “This is the biggest step towards strengthening Europe that can be taken right now, in our time and precisely in the context of the Russian war, which is testing our ability to preserve freedom and unity.
He added: “Thank you for the summit of all European leaders. We thank our heroes – everyone and everyone who defends the independence of Ukraine and the freedom of Europe with weapons in their hands. “
Andrei Ermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, tweeted: “We thank the Ukrainian people and the army [for] showing the importance of European values. “
Referring to the country’s fierce but costly resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion, which has claimed thousands of lives in four months, Ermak said: “We are paying a high price.”
Recommended
The move by EU governments comes almost nine years after pro-European demonstrations in Kyiv erupted against the then-pro-Russian president. This sparked a protest movement that culminated in its removal and indirectly led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Putin’s renewed invasion of the rest of the country this spring.
However, the decision is unlikely to lead to a sudden membership. The leaders set a number of conditions related to the rule of law, corruption and the judiciary that Ukraine must meet in order to move to the next stage of accession talks.
Ermak said Zelensky’s administration was “ready for further necessary reforms” needed for Ukraine’s official EU membership.
The newest country to join the EU, Croatia, took nine years to move from candidate status to membership.
Recommended
Moldova, another former Soviet state, was also recognized as a candidate for EU membership at Thursday’s summit, also on additional terms, before it can move into full talks.
Georgia, which is applying to join in the weeks since Putin’s invasion, has been told it can only apply if it first meets a number of conditions.
The much-anticipated decisions were informally agreed by EU ambassadors at a meeting on Monday, but needed the approval of the bloc’s leaders.
Thursday’s agreement was delayed for several hours due to requests from Central European countries, including Austria and Hungary, to grant Bosnia and Herzegovina the same status as Georgia. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said: “Bosnia has been at the center of the debate for 3.5 hours.”
The European Commission was called upon to help the former Yugoslav republic with its failed reforms before potentially gaining candidate status later this year.
Add Comment