BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union said Thursday that Ukraine, even amid war and relentless attacks from Russia, was staying the course towards opening membership talks with the bloc and lauded it for reforms in several sectors.
Ukraine sees EU membership as an essential part of its Western-oriented future. For over a year it has worked on paving the way to opening talks and the 27-nation bloc issued some badly needed words of encouragement, although it said work remains to be done.
In an interim report addressing only part of the changes the nation needs to make to start talks, EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said Kyiv had “completed” two of seven steps, on judicial governance and media freedom and that "good progress had been made on constitutional court reform.
But he added that only “some progress” had been made on tackling corruption, money laundering and the system of oligarchs, and on dealing with minority groups it still needed to address recommendations from the continent's foremost human rights body, the Council of Europe.
A full report on Ukraine's progress toward opening membership talks is set for October. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he wants to open membership talks by the end of the year. However, joining the bloc is, in the best of circumstances, expected to take several more years.
The EU has been a steadfast supporter of Ukraine in the war against Russia, has taken in millions of refugees and provided the government with billions in aid to make sure the nation does not implode financially.
Ukraine will be able to join the bloc only if it gets major financial aid from current members to rebuild its economy and upgrade to EU standards.
