The official assessment by the EU should be in October 2023
The European Commission’s first assessment of Ukraine’s progress in fulfilling the “candidate criteria” will be presented in May, and by then Kyiv will have completed the implementation of most of them. This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olga Stefanishyna during a conversation with journalists in Kyiv, writes “European truth”.
According to her, we should wait for some specifics regarding the assessment from the European Commission only at the end of spring. Before that, a discussion between EU member states and Ukraine will take place in March.
“We expect that in May, when there will be a meeting of the EU Council on general issues, such an assessment will be presented. Perhaps preliminary talks will also take place in Kyiv, during visits of different levels. And already on March 20, I will take part in an informal meeting of the Council on general issues, where we will discuss all 7 recommendations and determine a specific date (presentation of its assessment by the European Commission – ed.)“, Stefanishyna said.
Currently, there are only expert assessments of how Ukraine fulfills the “candidate requirements”. The official assessment by the EU will be presented only in October. However, in order to help Kyiv identify problematic points, the European Commission agreed to present an “oral interim assessment” of Ukraine’s progress in the spring. The date of such presentation has not yet been made public.
Stefanishyna believes that by this time, Ukraine will be able to almost completely complete the implementation of all seven criteria, except for the implementation of the law on national minorities.
“Several blocs have already been politically completed, technical issues remain… There will remain tasks related to the implementation of the law on national minorities,” she explained.
Stefanishyna reminded that the head of NABU has been appointed, the concept of reforming law enforcement agencies has been prepared and must be approved by the president’s decision, and the process of selecting members of the Central Security Committee is being completed.
“In this way, we close the anti-corruption, law enforcement and judicial block,” she said.
The Deputy Prime Minister is also confident in the positive assessment of the reform of the system of selection of judges of the Constitutional Court, despite the fact that Ukraine will not appoint the seventh member of the Advisory Group of Experts, as initially recommended by the Venice Commission. Instead, Ukraine will make other changes to the selection procedure, which will give international experts the right to jointly block the selection in case of disagreement with Ukrainian colleagues, Europravda writes.
An official assessment by the EU is due in October 2023, but in order to help Ukraine deal with the sticking points, the European Commission has agreed to give it an “oral interim assessment” of its progress.
