Moldova, which is also an official candidate for EU membership, is paired with Kyiv in the accession process and cannot move ahead as long as the impasse persists.<\/p>\n
Under Costa\u2019s proposal, so-called negotiating clusters \u2014 key legal steps on the path to membership \u2014 could be opened with the assent of a qualified majority of EU countries rather than unanimous agreement.\u00a0Closing a cluster would still require the support of all the EU capitals, but the lower standard for opening negotiations would allow Ukraine and Moldova to begin the reforms necessary to demonstrate progress toward EU standards in particular policy areas. They could move their membership bids forward even if one or two countries are opposed, according to a person familiar with the plan.<\/p>\n
According to the diplomats, Costa has been lobbying EU leaders directly during a recent \u201ctour des capitales\u201d where he met with several European leaders, as well as during bilateral talks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week in New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnlargement is an important priority for the president of the European Council,\u201d said one of the officials. \u201cHe sees it as the most important geopolitical investment the EU can make. That\u2019s why he believes it is important to continue discussing avenues to ensure that Ukraine\u2019s reform efforts can be translated into tangible steps.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marta Kos, the EU\u2019s enlargement commissioner, will head to Ukraine on Monday as the country completes the screening process of the\u00a0 legislation required to move ahead with its candidacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll clusters have been screened, in record time. Ukraine has delivered. Ukraine is ready for the next step. It\u2019s now up to member states to give the green light,\u201d Kos told POLITICO\u2019s Brussels Playbook. \u201cBoth Ukraine and Europe cannot afford to see Ukraine\u2019s momentum for reforms slow down. This is the moment to accelerate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moldova, which is also an official candidate for EU membership, is paired with Kyiv in the accession process…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[11783,6561,2000,299,2190,1197,60437,13491,809,657,1781],"class_list":{"0":"post-459653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-antonio-costa","9":"tag-enlargement","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-hungary","13":"tag-investment","14":"tag-marta-kos","15":"tag-moldova","16":"tag-negotiations","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115285988749154299","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}