António Costa (c) Euronews
This statement was made yesterday during a meeting of European leaders with President Zelensky in Cyprus. Kostota emphasized that Ukraine needs real, not symbolic membership, which requires a full-fledged launch of the negotiation process.
The EU President emphasized that after taking important decisions to support Ukraine (a 90 billion euro loan and the 20th package of sanctions against Russia), the next logical step is to move to the substantive part of the negotiations. “The negotiation clusters are already ready for formal opening,” the head of the European Council said.
We are talking about the Fundamentals cluster (Fundamentals), which includes the issues of justice, fundamental rights, democratic institutions and public administration reform. This is the first and most important cluster in the negotiation process.
This statement effectively gives the green light to the technical preparations for launching substantive negotiations on the chapters of the EU acquis.
