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The European Commission informally kept the process of membership for Ukraine in an effort to keep talks going despite Budapest’s firm opposition to Kyiv joining the 27-member bloc.
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The technical progress under clusters necessary to complete steps in line with EU reforms has been blocked by Hungary for more than a year, meaning Ukraine has barely advanced in the process since it received candidate status. Still, the Commission said Tuesday it would continue technical talks even if informally.
The move is designed to keep momentum going but does not change the structural hurdles faced by Ukraine in the face of staunch opposition from Hungary.
“At a time when Europe is under pressure from both East and West, we cannot afford to lose time. And we are not,” European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said on Tuesday morning after a meeting in Brussels.
“Now all six clusters are informally open,” she added. “Now have a clear to-do list.”
Last year, in its annual enlargement process report, the Commission suggested Ukraine was ready to open the clusters of fundamentals but failed to get these talks going.
Now, the Commission says it will open all six clusters, albeit informally, covering internal reforms, budget and justice. Each cluster includes several chapters. In total, the EU accession negotiations are structured around 35 different policy chapters.
According to Kos, the informal approach will allow Ukraine to continue all necessary reforms to align with EU norms and standards despite the complex political landscape. The goal is to advance as many steps as possible to allow the formal approval once the veto is lifted, even if a date is not guaranteed.
“We should differentiate between the two pillars of the accession process,” Kos said. “One is the technical work, which we will do now. The rest is the decision-making process in the member states.”
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Taras Kachka said that even though “informal” this is a “de facto” position of all EU members.
“This step is a really revolutionary step in a very European way,” he said, adding that it comes in line with the “with the current reality” and shows the EU’s “creativity while maintaining the rules”.
Ukraine is pushing for the EU to commit to an entry date as soon as 2027 to join the bloc as part of its ongoing peace negotiations, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling membership an “essential” pillar of its future security guarantees package.
Still, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month the EU cannot guarantee a date and member states, whose unanimous approval is required, have called for more realistic options.
