Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Taras Kachka said that Ukraine plans to close most chapters of negotiations on joining the European Union within the next 12-18 months. According to him, after that, Kyiv hopes to sign a membership agreement with the bloc as early as 2027.
He said this during question hour to the government in the Verkhovna Rada on April 30, a correspondent for Suspilny reports.
According to Kachka, despite last year's political blockage, Kyiv has carried out “active preparatory work” at the technical level. In particular, the EU has provided the Ukrainian side with requirements (benchmarks) for opening negotiation clusters in advance.
“In total, we have 145 EU requirements. Most of them concern bringing Ukrainian legislation into line with the standards of the union, as well as the practice of daily work of institutions. All of these requirements are realistic. In the next 12-18 months, we can close most of the negotiation chapters and proceed to signing the EU accession treaty next year,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister clarified that in March Kyiv received from the European Commission the second part of the conditions for the successful completion of technical negotiations on all chapters, and now this work is ongoing on all six clusters. The official opening of the clusters within the framework of the intergovernmental conference is expected in July.
In addition, he noted that after the accession treaty is signed, this document will be subject to ratification by the parliaments of all EU member states and Ukraine. This will take several years.
Kachka had previously said that Kyiv expects the opening of negotiation clusters for accession to the European bloc “in the coming weeks.” One of the EU officials confirmed in a comment to Suspilne that all the conditions are in place for this. At the same time, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković stated that such a scenario is unrealistic.