The European Commission confirmed on Wednesday that the screening process regarding Ukraine’s EU application started immediately after Commission’s president von der Leyen’s announcement this week in the European Parliament.
As previously reported, the Commission seemed to be in no hurry to prepare the accession negotiations with Ukraine as requested by the European Council at its meeting in mid-December. It was still organising the work after the holiday period. The announcement yesterday is good news for both Ukraine and Moldova.
Normally, the formal screening starts after the intergovernmental conferences opening the negotiations. In this case, it will start before the conferences for both Ukraine and Moldova. The screening is a detailed and analytical examination of a candidate country’s compliance with EU law (acquis). The acquis is divided in 33 chapters that are grouped in six clusters.
The first step in the screening process is the establishment of multi-disciplinary teams to cover the whole acquis, a Commission spokesperson explained. She also confirmed that the Commission is currently assessing the latest measures adopted by the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, that must be fulfilled to open the accession negotiations, and will report to the Council as necessary.
The European Council invited the Council to adopt the negotiating framework for Ukraine once the relevant steps set out in the Commission recommendations in it Enlargement package of 8 November 2023 are taken. According to the Commission’s latest assessment, Ukraine had completed four of the seven steps in the reform process (1, 2, 4 and 6) and more than 90 % of the actions under all steps.
Last but not least, the Commission has also started to work on the draft negotiating framework for Ukraine and will submit it to the Council in the coming weeks.
M. Apelblat
The Brussels Times
