Zelensky does not ask for "exceptions" for Ukraine to enter the EU but warns that accession "will mark the future" of the continent

Volodimir Zelensky does not want the European Union to forget that Russia continues to invade Ukraine while now all the focus is on the war between Israel and Hamas. Kiev maintains that adhesion to the community bloc is one of its major objectives for the short and medium term, and this was made known this Thursday by the president to the leaders of the 27 at the beginning of the European Council summit.. “Even despite the large-scale war, we do not ask for exceptions to the general rules,” Zelensky said of the entry.

“Each nation's path to the EU is a work based on merit and institutional development. Ukraine is doing this work,” the Ukrainian leader summarized by videoconference, also ensuring that his country “has practically implemented seven recommendations of the European Commission: both the simplest solutions and the difficult ones for politicians.”. Regarding this, in fact, it is expected that within about 10 days the Community Executive will publish reports on the progress of the candidate countries, including, of course, Ukraine.

In this sense, Zelensky had a message for the member states, which are the ones that have the final say on accession.. “We count on your unity in response to the decision to start negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the European Union. This decision will be one of the strongest of this decade and will largely determine the future path” of the Union, he said.. It is almost an all or nothing decision, in the words of the president himself. “Either our entire Europe wins – together with Ukraine, together with Moldova, and in the future together with Georgia and Belarus – or the past will win. “I am sure that you are all on the side of modern Europe,” he concluded, with an implicit message about Vladimir Putin's Russia.

In this context, Zelensky has taken several new steps. On the one hand, it has signed a new law that strengthens financial control and the fight against corruption, precisely to get closer to the reforms that the European Commission demands of Ukraine.. Likewise, he held a conversation with the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, in which he demanded that the Western allies continue to provide weapons to Kiev in its counteroffensive against Moscow.

And Ukraine has also been on the agenda of the leaders of the 27, and the meeting in fact took place in parallel with the announcement of the new Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, who announced the end of his country's aid to Kiev, something that had already been announced in the campaign. The one who implicitly celebrated this step was the Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán, who met Vladimir Putin in Beijing last week.. “I have a peace strategy,” the Magyar prime minister told reporters, equating the conflict between Israel and Hamas with the Russian invasion.

The enlargement of the EU is a debate that has been reopened in recent months and the Granada summit a few weeks ago laid the foundations for at least the message that we want to convey from Brussels. There is no desire to establish a calendar and the institutions insist that it is a “merit-based” process.. All in all, the summary is very clear: “The EU has to be ready when the candidate countries are ready.”