Along with Slovenia, which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union, similar declarations were signed by Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, and Croatia. That means already 1/4 of EU member states have openly declared their readiness to accept Ukraine to the European union, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba notes.
“You see how one after another EU leaders sign declarations with our president recognizing the prospects of Ukraine’s membership in the EU. Today, on 15 December, the seventh such declaration was signed with Slovenia. In less than a year we managed to collect a quarter of the votes for Ukraine’s accession to the EU,” Kuleba said.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1471124214145028099
The aim of Ukraine is to sign similar declaration with all EU states. Zelenskyy has already invited Belgium to become the next country signing the declaration.
Commenting on the events, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister said that Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova should become the next waves of the EU expansion, after the current wave on the Balcans.
“Our EU expansion phase will be called the ‘Associated Trio Wave.’ By the way, there have been encouraging signs of a Balkan wave in recent days. The long-running stalemate in the accession talks with Albania and Northern Macedonia has moved forward. This means that the queue is moving, and we are also getting closer to the strategic goal of EU membership for the Associated Trio,” said Kuleba.
The Summit in Brussels was dedicated to the six Eastern Partnership countries — Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan. As reported earlier, in May 2021, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova set up a new format of their collaboration called the Association Trio to coordinate their activities to join the next wave of EU expansion. A corresponding joint declaration was signed by the leaders of three countries on 15 December 2021.
