Key messages of Olga Stefanishyna on the 1st Accession Exchange Forum

We bring to your attention the key messages of Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna on the 1st Accession Exchange Forum.

We applied for membership also investing into the European project as such, saying that we believe that it is the only way to move forward into a democratic united Europe.
The spirit of 7 European Commission’s recommendations is different – we do not have only to tick the box, we need to preserve the spirit of our commitment to the reforms, which has been enshrined in every of 7 recommendations. Therefore, we bear a double responsibility for every step we take.
As long as Ukraine is holding the wheel and is ruling the agenda on European integration, there is no room for hesitation from our partners.
We are fully committed to the membership process and we will be driving the agenda of enlargement by ourselves. It means that we will prepare the negotiation position shortly next year for the beginning of the negotiations and consultations for our business. And by the end of 2023, we hope to bring back the consensus of the EU countries to start the negotiations.
It is not the EU or Ukraine that start from scratch. Granting the EU candidate status to Ukraine was not to begin the process, but to praise the reforms, which have been on the way for years.
We already want to proceed with the assessment of 7 recommendations in early 2023. Everything we had been doing before the candidate status was considered a gesture of goodwill in a good spirit of cooperation without a clear understanding that everything what has been done was done for Ukraine to become a part of the family of European nations.
Before Ukraine became the enlargement country, European institutions have been ready for something symbolic in the spirit of cooperation. Now it is the opposite – we are still where we are in terms of our sectoral proposals, but the European institutions already consider having their mandate, knowing that Ukraine will become part of the EU. So, the scale of thinking is absolutely different.

Video recording of the Forum is available here: 1st day and 2nd day.

The 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 Institute for European Policies and Reforms and the Soros Foundation in Georgia. The Accession Exchange Forum is taking place with EU support, within the EU-funded EU4USociety project implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation.