European Union Agrees on Negotiating Framework for Ukraine and Moldova's Membership

The European Union ambassadors have agreed on a negotiating framework for Ukraine and Moldova's accession to the EU. This is reported on the official website of the Belgian presidency of the EU Council.

The first intergovernmental conference will be convened on 25 June. It will officially launch negotiations on Ukraine and Moldova's accession to the European Union.

The end of June was the expected date for the intergovernmental conference, as this month is the end of Belgium's presidency of the EU Council and theoretically the presidency will be taken over by Hungary, which had been blocking the adoption of this decision at the level of permanent representatives.

As a reminder, the European Council granted Ukraine EU candidate status at a summit in Brussels on 23 June 2022. To achieve this, Kyiv has to implement several important reforms related to the rule of law, de-oligarchisation and the fight against corruption.

On 8 November 2023, the European Commission announced that it considered four of the seven reforms to be fully completed and recommended that the Council of the European Union start the process of negotiating Ukraine's and Moldova's accession to the EU. 

The negotiating framework was adopted in March 2024.

On 7 June, the European Commission confirmed that it had given a positive oral assessment of the progress of Ukraine and Moldova's European integration reforms, as set out in the November report on EU enlargement.