The European Commission is preparing a “more cautious” plan for Ukraine’s accession negotiations with the European Union, setting limited targets for 2027 and containing no commitment to a membership date. Politico reported this, saying it had obtained access to the relevant document.
Brussels is urging Kyiv to “immediately and substantially accelerate the pace of reforms in the rule of law.” According to the roadmap, meeting the key requirements by the first half of 2027 is a necessary condition for concluding negotiations “in individual areas.”
Seven areas for negotiations in 2027
The European Commission’s plan identifies seven areas in which Ukraine could potentially conclude negotiations in 2027. The first half of the year concerns education and culture.
For the second half of 2027, the document envisages the possible conclusion of negotiations in the following areas:
- intellectual property;
- employment and social policy;
- industrial policy;
- research;
- external relations;
- foreign policy and security.
The roadmap highlights the path Ukraine still has to travel before joining the EU, as well as the difficulty of carrying out reforms during wartime.
Different pace for Ukraine and Moldova
The document also points to an increasingly noticeable difference between the pace of European integration in Ukraine and Moldova. Their accession applications had previously advanced in parallel, but Brussels now believes that Chisinau could make “significantly faster progress.”
According to the European Commission’s assessment, Ukraine could potentially conclude negotiations in seven areas in 2027, while Moldova could do so in more than 20.
Ukraine applied for EU membership on February 28, 2022, four days after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. In June 2022, Ukraine and Moldova were granted candidate status simultaneously, and in June 2024 they officially began membership negotiations.
In the document, Brussels cautiously avoids setting a final date for the completion of Ukraine’s accession negotiations. A similar approach is being applied to Albania and Moldova. Montenegro is the exception: June 2027 is being considered as a target date for signing an accession treaty.
Negotiating clusters and Hungary’s position
On October 13, the Council of the European Union officially opened the second and third negotiating clusters for Ukraine, making it possible to move on to the next stages of negotiations.
Hungary had long blocked Ukraine’s progress toward the EU due to the need to resolve the issue of the Hungarian national minority in Zakarpattia. On October 12, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law on the educational rights of national minorities, which was one of Budapest’s conditions for unblocking negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU.
On November 4, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the EU, Taras Kachka, said that Hungary was no longer raising new objections to negotiations on opening the final two clusters for Ukraine’s accession to the EU. According to him, the issue of national minorities has been resolved.
