LUXEMBOURG: The European Union on Tuesday kicked off accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, setting the fragile ex-Soviet states on a long path toward membership that Russia has tried to block.
The landmark move signals in particular a vote of confidence in Kyiv’s future at a time when Moscow has momentum on the battlefield almost two and a half years into the Kremlin’s invasion.
“Dear friends, today marks the beginning of a new chapter in the relationship between Ukraine and the European Union,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said via videolink at the start of the talks.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a “historic day” as officials from Kyiv and the EU’s 27 member states met in Luxembourg.
“We will never be derailed from our path to a united Europe and to our common home of all European nations,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on social media.
Ukraine and later Moldova lodged their bids to join the EU in the aftermath of Russia’s assault in February 2022.
The opening of the talks marks just the beginning of a protracted process of reforms in Ukraine that is strewn with political obstacles and will likely take many years — and may never lead to membership.
Standing in the way along that journey will be not just Russia’s efforts at destabilization but reticence from doubters inside the EU, most notably Hungary.
But European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen called the opening of talks “very good news for the people of Ukraine, Moldova, and the entire European Union.”
“The path ahead will be challenging but full of opportunities,” she wrote on X on Tuesday.
So far, Ukraine has won plaudits for kickstarting a raft of reforms on curbing graft and political interference, even as war rages.
Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna, vowed that Kyiv “will be able to complete everything before 2030” to join the bloc.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has reinvigorated a push in the EU to take on new members, after years in which countries particularly in the Western Balkans made little progress on their hopes to join.
The EU in December 2023 also granted candidate status to Georgia, another of Russia’s former Soviet neighbors.
It likewise approved accession negotiations with Bosnia and has talks ongoing with Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia.
The meetings with Ukraine and Moldova on Tuesday will set off a process of screening of how far laws in the countries already comply with EU standards and how much more work lies ahead.
Once that is done the EU then has to begin laying out conditions for negotiations on 35 subjects, ranging from taxation to environmental policy.
Stefanishyna said the next step should come in early 2025.
EU countries pushed to start the talks now before Hungary — the friendliest country to Russia in the bloc — takes over the EU’s rotating presidency next month.
Budapest has been opposed to pressing ahead with Kyiv’s membership bid, arguing that Ukraine was unfairly moving ahead for political reasons.
“From what I see here as we speak, they are very far from meeting the accession criteria,” Hungary’s Europe minister Janos Boka said on Tuesday.
Accepting Ukraine — a war-ravaged country of some 40 million people — would be a major step for the EU, and there are calls for the bloc to carry out reforms to streamline how it works before accepting new members.
The start of the talks resonates powerfully in Ukraine, as it was a desire for closer ties with the EU that sparked protests back in 2014 that eventually spiralled into the full-blown crisis with Russia.
The negotiations also come at a tense time in Moldova after the United States, Britain and Canada warned of a Russian “plot” to influence the country’s presidential elections in October.
Wedged between Ukraine and EU member Romania, Moldova’s pro-Western authorities frequently accuse the Kremlin of interfering in its internal affairs.
President Maia Sandu has accused Moscow, which has troops stationed in a breakaway region of the country, of aiming to destabilize Moldova ahead of the vote.
“Our future is within the European family,” Sandu wrote on X. “We are stronger together.”
EU launches ‘historic’ membership talks with Ukraine, Moldova
https://arab.news/pub6e
EU launches ‘historic’ membership talks with Ukraine, Moldova
- Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna, vowed that Kyiv “will be able to complete everything before 2030” to join the bloc
France’s Le Pen insists party acted in ‘good faith’ at EU fraud appeal
- Le Pen said on her second day of questioning that even if her party broke the law, it was unintentional
- She also argued that the passage of time made it “extremely difficult” for her to prove her innocence
PARIS: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen told an appeals trial on Wednesday that her party acted in “good faith,” denying an effort to embezzle European Parliament funds as she fights to keep her 2027 presidential bid alive.
A French court last year barred Le Pen, a three-time presidential candidate from the far-right National Rally (RN), from running for office for five years over a fake jobs scam at the European institution.
It found her, along with 24 former European Parliament lawmakers, assistants and accountants as well as the party itself, guilty of operating a “system” from 2004 to 2016 using European Parliament funds to employ party staff in France.
Le Pen — who on Tuesday rejected the idea of an organized scheme — said on her second day of questioning that even if her party broke the law, it was unintentional.
“We were acting in complete good faith,” she said in the dock on Wednesday.
“We can undoubtedly be criticized,” the 57-year-old said, shifting instead the blame to the legislature’s alleged lack of information and oversight.
“The European Parliament’s administration was much more lenient than it is today,” she said.
Le Pen also argued that the passage of time made it “extremely difficult” for her to prove her innocence.
“I don’t know how to prove to you what I can’t prove to you, what I have to prove to you,” she told the court.
Eleven others and the party are also appealing in a trial to last until mid-February, with a decision expected this summer.
- Rules were ‘clear’ -
Le Pen was also handed a four-year prison sentence, with two years suspended, and fined 100,000 euros ($116,000) in the initial trial.
She now again risks the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a one-million-euro ($1.16 million) fine if the appeal fails.
Le Pen is hoping to be acquitted — or at least for a shorter election ban and no time under house arrest.
On Tuesday, Le Pen pushed back against the argument that there was an organized operation to funnel EU funds to the far-right party.
“The term ‘system’ bothers me because it gives the impression of manipulation,” she said.
EU Parliament official Didier Klethi last week said the legislature’s rules were “clear.”
EU lawmakers could employ assistants, who were allowed to engage in political activism, but this was forbidden “during working hours,” he said.
If the court upholds the first ruling, Le Pen will be prevented from running in the 2027 election, widely seen as her best chance to win the country’s top job.
She made it to the second round in the 2017 and 2022 presidential polls, before losing to Emmanuel Macron. But he cannot run this time after two consecutive terms in office.
