We bring to your attention the key messages of Katarina Mathernova, EU Ambassador to Ukraine during the 3rd EU Accession Exchange Forum:

• I strongly believe that enlargement was one of the most successful policies of the European Union. I worked in enlargement negotiations for nine years, and there was none of the sense of inevitability about enlargement that you have now. The mobilization is there and the most important now is to maintain the momentum. Enlargement is in the air.  I think that with the war in Ukraine, the stakes are so high that we simply cannot fail.
• The submitting of the application to join the European Union on the 28^th of February 2022 by President Zelenskyy and the top leadership was really a courageous and forward-looking step. It pushed us into looking at the enlargement question much more geopolitically than we did before. So, thank you to the leadership of Ukraine for pushing us in that direction.
• I’m one of those, who thinks that the way to guarantee Ukraine’s future is in NATO. It’s in the EU’s core interest to be under the same security umbrella as Ukraine.
• I think it’s in the EU’s interest to push for sufficient security guarantees for Ukraine and for the EU. We are not going to invent anything better than NATO, but the principle is there, and it should be in the EU’s interest to push that agenda.
• We are now moving to a new EU reality, from a sprint to a marathon. Yes, the geopolitics will push the political calendar, but there is also technical work to be done. And it is very hard to completely shortcut. The institutional bar is relatively high, but Ukraine does not start from scratch, because the last 10 years prepared you well.

Video recording of the Forum is available here.

PHOTO report of the Forum is here.

The EU Accession Exchange Forum is organized by the New Europe Center in partnership with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, the International Renaissance Foundation, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute for European Policies and Reforms, the Center for Liberal Modernity and the European Pravda. The EU Accession Exchange Forum is taking place with EU support, within the EU-funded “European Renaissance of Ukraine” project implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation.

New Europe Center is greatful for wide media support of the Forum to informational agency UKRINFORM.