Ukraine's accession to the European Union has approached a concrete moment of realisation. Bloomberg news agency, citing sources familiar with the negotiations, reported that EU leaders agreed that the conditions for launching the first phase of accession negotiations have been met. Thus, the formal opening of the first negotiating cluster could occur within weeks. The exact timetable has not yet been set.

The decisive impetus came from the informal EU summit in Cyprus on 23-24 April, where the President of the EU Council António Costa together with the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen have spoken out in favour of moving quickly. Costa opened the summit by reminding that EU leaders had just approved a €90 billion loan to Kiev as well as a €20 billion loan to the EU.

Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kosová while declaring in March that all negotiating clusters are for Ukraine „informally open“. The Cyprus summit now gives a political signal to formalise them.

Changes within the EU have played a crucial role in unblocking the process. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which was the only one to block the opening of accession negotiations in June 2025, lost the 12 April elections. The winner of the election Péter Magyar repeatedly announced that the new Budapest would accept its commitments to the EU and stop blocking Ukraine's accession.

Slovak Prime Minister was a similar obstacle Robert Fico, which made Ukraine's accession to the EU conditional on the resumption of oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline. On 23 April, oil began to flow to Bratislava after three months of interruption, and Slovakia confirmed that it would withdraw its veto.

Diplomatic flexibility is also coming from Kiev. Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Taras Kačka On 21 April, he told Bloomberg that Ukraine is willing to delay the use of EU agricultural subsidies from the CAP programme for several years in exchange for accelerating the uptake.

This is an unprecedented concession - the EU's agricultural policy is one of the most sensitive and costly programmes of the Union, and the entry of an agriculturally strong Ukraine would, with unlimited subsidy participation, significantly reduce the existing countries' allocations. Kiev has made it clear that it wants full membership more than immediate benefits.

Yet doubts remain. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared in January that Ukraine's accession on 1 January 2027 was not realistic and made it conditional on meeting the Copenhagen criteria, especially in the area of the rule of law and the fight against corruption. The Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloniová in Nicosia called for a clear definition of the rules before moving forward. The French President Emmanuel Macron then asked the Commission to present a concrete timetable for both Ukraine and Moldova in the coming weeks. Zelensky himself warned that Kiev would not accept associate partner status as a substitute for full membership.

gnews.cz - GH