The approval of the negotiation framework for Ukraine at the upcoming European Council summit is one of the technical stages of our European integration. Now, the top priority is to start the EU accession negotiations as soon as possible, under the Belgian presidency.
This was stated by Yevheniia Kravchuk, the MP, Deputy Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, member of the Permanent Delegation to PACE.
“The negotiation framework is not very different for different countries. They are slightly adjusted to a particular candidate. Ukraine, for example, is interested in how our agricultural products will be integrated into the European market, i.e. what kind of transition period there may be, or what kind of transition period there will be for environmental standards and for re-equipping our plants. This will be decided in the course of negotiations, but it is very important to start them. In fact, this is the top priority,” the MP said.
According to her, it is important for Ukraine that these negotiations start officially and that negotiating groups start working under Belgium's EU presidency.
“Belgium is an ally of Ukraine. It is interested in seeing a historic event take place during its presidency. Accordingly, this is the first half of this year. We still expect the negotiating teams to start working in the near future. At the same time, we are conducting a screening process – checking Ukrainian legislation, various resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers, that is, all documents that can be checked for compliance with EU standards,” the MP said.
She added that literally every day, meetings with representatives of the European Commission are held on various topics, including the economy, movement of goods, capital, justice, freedom of speech, etc.