Lhe President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen arrived in kyiv on Saturday June 11 for a new visit devoted to Ukraine’s ambitions to join the EU and to reconstruction.
“I am back in kyiv to meet the President [Volodymyr] Zelensky and the Prime Minister [Denys] Chmyhal. We will take stock of the joint work necessary for reconstruction and the progress made by Ukraine on the road to Europe,” she told journalists, including Agence France-Presse, accompanying her. in his visit.
“This will feed into our assessment, which we will present shortly,” she added. EU officials are due to decide on Ukraine’s European ambitions next week, ahead of a June 23-24 summit that is also expected to address the issue. Ukraine is demanding a concrete “legal commitment” by the end of June from the Europeans to obtain official candidate status for entry into the EU.
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A membership that divides the member countries
While many countries, mainly in Eastern Europe, support Ukraine’s membership, some, such as the Netherlands or Denmark, but also Germany and France, which is presiding over the EU until the end June, are very reserved.
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And even if Ukraine is granted ‘candidate status’, it will start a process of negotiations and potential reforms that could take years, if not decades, before it is on the verge of joining the EU. . Several EU states have thus dampened kyiv’s hopes of an “accelerated” process.
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This is the second visit to Ukraine by the head of the European Union since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24. During her previous visit on April 8, Ursula von der Leyen assured that Ukraine had a “European future”.