EU Council Begins Formal Preparations for Ukraine, Moldova Accession Talks
Quick Look
- The Council of the European Union has started formal preparations to open accession negotiations with Moldova and Ukraine.
- The Cyprus presidency initiated the process, aiming to align legislation with the EU, a process that typically takes over a decade.
AI-generated summary
BRUSSELS, June 4. /TASS/. The Council of the European Union has begun formal preparations to the start of accession negotiations with Moldova and Ukraine, the Cypriot presidency in the Council said on the X social network.
"Today the Cyprus Presidency initiated the preparation for the formal opening of Cluster one in the accession negotiations of Ukraine and Moldova," the post says.
The presidency pledged to work hard in the coming days to complete the discussion within the Council regarding the start of the talks.
The negotiations may begin on June 15 during an intergovernmental conference on EU expansion in Luxembourg.
Accession negotiations are aimed at aligning all of a candidate country's legislation with that of the EU. They usually take over 10 years, and there are no rigid timeframes for this process. Turkey, for example, began accession talks in 2005, and they have been ongoing for 20 years without any real prospect of the country joining the bloc. Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, as well as Georgia, and Moldova, have official candidate status for EU accession.
