Subscribe here: [ Ссылка ] Five years have passed since European Union leaders began contemplating, in the aftermath of the 2019 European Parliament election, institutional reforms. It was the first time since the signature of the Lisbon treaty in 2007 that they acknowledged the need for the union to reform itself. Originally pitched by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, through the synchronised publication of an opinion-editorial piece in newspapers across Europe, the idea was to offer citizens the chance to express what they expected from the union.

Rather than opening a formal process of treaty reform, the main EU institutions—the European Commission, the Council of the EU and the parliament—convened an unprecedented, yet little-noticed, transnational democratic exercise, the Conference on the Future of Europe. The CoFoE was populated by randomly selected citizens, as well as local, national and EU politicians.

The new conference was not tasked to prepare treaty changes but to be a preparatory process, creating bottom-up momentum for institutional reform driven for the first time by citizen demand, rather than representing a closeted, top-down exercise. Notwithstanding the challenges posed by the pandemic and endless inter-institutional skirmishes, the conference concluded its work on Europe Day (May 9th) 2022 by approving 326 proposals for EU reform.

The European Commission is in no hurry to prepare the opening of accession negotiations with Ukraine and to speed up its military aid to the country amid an escalation in Russian missile strikes against civilian targets and the on-going war of attrition along the Ukrainian-Russian front lines.

As previously reported, the European Council in mid-December last year resulted in a unanimous decision to open accession negotiations with Ukraine after Hungary’s Prime Minister, who had threatened to use his veto against the decision, left the meeting room during the vote. As regards the financial assistance to Ukraine, he used his veto to block a decision.

The European Council invited the Council to adopt the negotiating framework for Ukraine once the relevant steps set out in the Commission recommendations in it Enlargement package of 8 November 2023 are taken. According to the Commission’s own assessment, Ukraine had completed four of the seven steps in the reform process (1, 2, 4 and 6) and more than 90 % of the actions under all steps.

Under the other steps (3 anti-corruption, 5 anti-oligarchs and 7 national minorities), there were only four laws that need to be enacted. The negotiating framework will be adopted once Ukraine has enacted all the laws.

Just before the European Council meeting in December, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in a speech in the European Parliament that Ukraine had enacted three of the four outstanding recommendations that need to be implemented effectively. Among others, the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) has approved an amended law on national minorities.

Commission still preparing next step
From this one could expect that it would not take much more time for the Commission to finalise the negotiating framework or even start the screening of the whole acquis (community law). The screening is a detailed examination of a candidate country’s compliance with EU law. Normally, the formal screening starts after the intergovernmental conference opening the negotiations.

In Ukraine’s case, because of the urgency of sending a political signal to both Ukraine and Russia, the Commission seemed ready to accelerate the process to save time. A candidate country is obliged to transpose and implement the acquis during the accession process before joining the EU.

Gert Jan Koopman, Director-General of DG NEAR, told The Brussels Times in November that he had already instructed his teams to go to Ukraine (and Moldova) and start the screening as soon as the European Council had taken its decision.

Asked if the screening process already had started, a Commission spokesperson replied last Thursday that not much time had passed since the European Council decision and that the Commission was still “preparing” the screening. It could not say when it would start. It also needed time to analyze if Ukraine has addressed the remaining conditions. “Basically, we are organizing ourselves for the next steps.”

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#eudebates the unique initiative aiming to promote debate, dialogue, knowledge, participation and communication among citizens. #Ukraine #war #EUROPE #Russia

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