European Commission Recommends EU Candidate Status for Ukraine

On Friday, the European Commission (EC) recommended granting Ukraine a "European Perspective" and "Candidate Status" to enter the European Union (EU) if this country carries out "important reforms."

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This was announced by EC President Ursula von der Leyen during a press conference in which she communicated the results of a report carried out in an accelerated manner after Ukraine formally applied for EU membership.

EC authorities met to issue an opinion on whether Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia should be granted the European Perspective and Candidate Status for EU accession. The Commission proposes that Moldova first receive a "European Perspective" and then "Candidate Status" if it meets certain conditions.

With regard to Georgia, the European authorities recommended to re-evaluate its situation before recommending that it be a candidate. Nevertheless, the final decision to consider a country as a candidate and begin negotiating its entry into the EU must be made unanimously by the 27 European countries.

"Ukrainians are willing to die for the European perspective. We want them to live with the European dream," Von der Leyen said, adding that "we propose candidate status and we know that afterwards we have to work on the reforms that have been detailed."

This official emphasized that accession to the European Union is "a dynamic process that can move forward or backward at different speeds," which means that accession is not achieved with "pre-established deadlines or steps that cannot be undone when they have been taken."

Von der Leyen specified that the evaluations of the three countries were carried out "carefully", taking into account the merits of each nation, and considering the criteria of Copenhagen and Madrid, which "establish the political and economic conditions, as well as the ability to prosper in our competitive internal market".

The College's opinion will help the European Council make a decision on granting or not candidate status to the three countries. The European Council will make its decision next week during its next meeting on June 23-24.