Europe EU prepares accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova
Ukraine and Moldova can look forward to the official start of negotiations on EU accession after a two-year long impasse. As the current Cypriot EU Council Presidency announced this evening, preparations for the formal opening of the first phase of negotiations have been initiated. Ideally, the talks should be able to start as early as June 15 on the fringes of an EU ministerial meeting in Luxembourg.
04.06.2026, 05:34
SDA
The EU accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova had actually already been opened in June 2024. However, the opening of the first phase of negotiations with Ukraine was then blocked by Hungary with a veto. It was only after the long-serving Hungarian head of government Viktor Orban was voted out of office in April that the process began to move forward again.
On Wednesday evening, the new Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar announced an agreement with Ukraine to strengthen the minority rights of ethnic Hungarians in the eastern neighboring country. Magyar had made such an agreement a condition for agreeing to EU accession talks with Ukraine.
Negotiations can also fail
In the first stage of negotiations, officially known as the first cluster, the countries must show, among other things, that their judicial system and public administration meet EU standards. The accession negotiation process is divided thematically into a total of six sections, each consisting of several chapters.
The negotiations usually drag on for years and it is not certain that they can be successfully concluded. EU accession negotiations with Turkey, for example, were launched back in 2005 - but are now completely on hold following the country's continued setbacks in the areas of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.
