While the 27 member countries are divided over the arrival of Ukraine in the EU, the President of the European Commission is going to kyiv.
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived in kyiv on Saturday 11 June for a new visit dedicated to Ukraine's ambitions to join the EU and to reconstruction.
“I am back in Kyiv to meet President [Volodymyr] Zelensky and Prime Minister [Denys] Chmyhal. We will take stock of the joint work necessary for reconstruction and the progress made by Ukraine on the road to Europe,” she told journalists, including Agence France-Presse, accompanying her. in his visit.
“This will feed into our assessment, which we will present shortly,” she added. EU officials are due to decide on Ukraine's European ambitions next week, ahead of a June 23-24 summit that is also expected to address the issue. Ukraine is demanding a concrete “legal commitment” by the end of June from the Europeans to obtain official candidate status for entry into the EU.
A membership that divides the member countries
While many countries, mainly in Eastern Europe, support Ukraine's membership, some, such as the Netherlands or Denmark, but also Germany and France, which presides the EU until the end of June, are very reserved.
And even if Ukraine obtains “candidate status”, it will start a process of negotiations and reforms which could take years or even decades before it is on the verge of entering the EU. Several EU states have thus dashed kyiv's hopes of an “accelerated” process.
This is the second visit to Ukraine by the head of the European Union since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24. During her previous visit on April 8, Ursula von der Leyen assured that Ukraine had a “European future”.
