Ukraine pushes to open remaining EU accession clusters at 15 December meeting
Ukraine wants to use the 15 December meeting of EU affairs ministers to open its remaining accession negotiation clusters, aiming to have all six opened by the end of 2025. The European Commission has proposed completing technical accession talks in 2028 for Moldova and 2029 for Ukraine, and Ukraine has raised concerns that its process could be decoupled from Moldova's.
Key points
- Ukraine wants to open the remaining EU accession negotiation clusters at a 15 December meeting of EU affairs ministers.
- Ukraine aims to have all six clusters opened by the end of 2025.
- Ukraine hopes to finish opening clusters by year-end because upcoming elections in EU member states could make it politically harder afterward.
- The European Commission's proposal envisions completing technical accession talks in 2028 for Moldova and 2029 for Ukraine.
- The Commission's candidate-country roadmaps are to be officially presented to EU member-state governments by the end of 2025.
- Ukrainian representative Vsevolod Chentsov said the roadmaps do not fully reflect Ukraine's progress on internal reforms.
- An EU representative said there is no confirmed completion date for the technical talks and that the timeline will depend on reform pace in the candidate countries.
Why it matters
Opening all negotiation clusters by the end of 2025 is a key Ukrainian diplomatic benchmark for its EU accession path, and Kyiv wants to lock in progress before elections in EU member states are expected to make further political decisions harder. The Commission's own timeline sketches a longer horizon — 2028 for Moldova and 2029 for Ukraine for the technical talks — which sits uneasily with Ukraine's end-of-year cluster goal and its concern that the linked Ukraine-Moldova processes could be split apart.
What happened
Ukraine is pushing to use the 15 December meeting of EU affairs ministers to open the remaining EU accession negotiation clusters. Kyiv's stated aim is to have all six clusters opened by the end of 2025, and Ukrainian representatives said there are no political obstacles to doing so. The push is driven by the expectation that upcoming elections in EU member states will make further cluster openings politically difficult once the year is out.
Separately, the European Commission is reported to envision completing technical accession talks in 2028 for Moldova and 2029 for Ukraine. The Commission's proposed roadmaps for candidate countries are to be officially presented to EU member-state governments by the end of 2025. An EU representative, however, said no completion date for the technical talks has been confirmed and that the timeline will depend on the pace of required reforms in the candidate countries.
Where reporting differs
Sources differ on the timing for completing technical accession negotiations: the European Commission is reported to envisage 2028 for Moldova and 2029 for Ukraine, while a separate EU representative has said no completion date is confirmed and that the timeline will depend on reform pace. There is also a disagreement on whether the Commission's proposed roadmaps reflect Ukraine's progress: Ukrainian representative Vsevolod Chentsov said the roadmaps do not fully reflect Ukraine's internal reform progress.
Background
Ukraine's and Moldova's EU applications have so far been handled informally as linked processes. The European Commission's proposed roadmaps for candidate countries are to be officially presented to EU member-state governments by the end of 2025, and internal reforms in Ukraine are identified as a key issue for the Commission. An EU representative has said there is no confirmed completion date for the technical accession talks and that the timeline will depend on the pace of required reforms in the candidate countries.