EU ambassadors to discuss on 5 December whether to start Ukraine's EU accession talks

The permanent representatives of 27 EU member states will start discussing the decision of the forthcoming EU summit concerning the start of accession talks with Ukraine and other members in Brussels on 5 December.

Source: European Pravda with reference to Reuters

Details: The initial project of the decision of the 14-15 December EU summit to be discussed by ambassadors contains the following wording: "The European Council decides to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and with Moldova."

It is also stated there that the negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina will start "once the necessary degree of compliance with the membership criteria is achieved", and Georgia will receive a candidate status if Tbilisi fulfils all criteria as well.

The information on wording concerning Kyiv, Kishinev and Tbilisi were partially confirmed by Rikard Jozwiak, a Radio Liberty journalist. He states that the start of membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova in the project of summit decisions was put in brackets, which means the absence of a final decision.

EU diplomats and officials Reuters talked with say that the project will be changed. So far it is unknown in which way exactly.

Background: In the report published on 8 November the European Commission has recommended that EU states start accession negotiations with Ukraine, but Kyiv must implement further reforms. The Ukrainian government is sure that Ukraine’s readiness level for EU accession is high and promises to end the talks in two years.

The decision whether to start the negotiations with Ukraine will be discussed at the EU leaders’ summit in December. Hungary, which is promising to block the positive decision for Kyiv, might hinder the decision.

Recently, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote a letter to the President of the European Commission in which he threatened to block EU aid for Ukraine and its movement towards EU membership if the EU leaders do not agree to review the whole strategy of supporting Kyiv.

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