Kyiv’s accession to the EU? “Unlikely to be genuine promises”

“span class=”news_bold”>These are unlikely to be genuine promises“, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in response to a question from a Russian journalist who published an extract of the conversation on Telegram.

Peskov considered that Brussels’ promises were “a waved carrot” by the EU for Ukraine, which has faced a Russian offensive for almost two years.

The European Commission on Wednesday gave the green light to the opening of EU accession negotiations with Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the Commission’s “good” decision: “Our state must be part of the EU. Ukrainians deserve it”, he said.

In June 2022, the EU granted candidate status to Ukraine, in a highly symbolic gesture, a few months after the start of the Russian offensive, as well as neighboring Moldova.

To move to the next phase – the opening of accession negotiations – the Commission defined seven reference criteria for Kyiv, including conditions to be met in terms of the fight against corruption and judicial reform.

Ukraine was impatiently awaiting this green light, at a time when its counteroffensive is setting a pace and the war between Israel and Hamas is diverting the attention of its allies.

But the European Commission’s recommendation is still far from the end of the road for Ukraine and the other candidate countries.

The heads of state of the 27 Member States are still expected to vote on this opinion at the Brussels summit in mid-December.

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