Ukraine to fulfill all EU recommendations by October to start accession negotiations - OP
Date: 2023-08-04 Author: Кирило Загоруйко Categories: POLICY
The president's office is sure that by October Ukraine will be able to fulfill all the recommendations of the European Union, which will allow it to maintain the status of a candidate for EU membership and start accession negotiations. Igor Zhovkva, Deputy Head of the President's Office, said this in an interview.
"If we take the interval from the interim assessment in June to the moment when we communicate with you, then the parliament has already approved a number of laws that were required in those seven recommendations. Some of them were adopted in the first reading," he said.
According to Zhovkva, Ukraine is moving in this direction at a "good pace" and plans to implement all the recommendations by October, when the final assessment is expected.
He recalled that according to the interim assessment of the European Commission, which was a month ago, two recommendations have been fully implemented, one has tangible progress, and four have some progress.
"But from June to the beginning of August, we did something else," he said.
In addition, Zhovkva also assessed the results of the NATO summit in Vilnius, which took place in July, and Ukraine's prospects on the way to joining the Alliance.
In particular, he repeated the thesis of the President of Ukraine that the results of the summit are positive, but not ideal.
According to him, in addition to canceling the NATO membership action plan, Ukraine also received a positive result in the form of the founding of the NATO-Ukraine Rada format, which became the main working mechanism for bringing Ukraine closer to membership.
The deputy chairman of the OP stressed that it is Ukraine that will dictate the agenda of this body.
"The next point is known - this is the next NATO summit, which is to be held in a year in Washington. This summit is scheduled for the 75th anniversary of NATO, the anniversary. Therefore, it will be even more symbolic if Ukraine achieves its goal at this summit," he said.
According to Zhovkva, as early as November, NATO foreign ministers will assess the progress that Ukraine will achieve since the summit in Vilnius, and on the basis of this, future decisions will be built at the summit in Washington.
He also noted that the cancellation of the MAP for Ukraine will not only shorten its path to NATO, but also the time period of this path.
“Now, from a two-step path to NATO membership, this path has become a one-step path for Ukraine. We are ready to follow approximately the same algorithm that Finland has already successfully passed and, we very much hope that Sweden will successfully pass soon. Ukraine, in turn, has every chance of becoming the 33rd member of NATO. And this is reality, this is not fantasy," the representative of the President's Office emphasized.
