On 17 March, Ukraine received from the European Union the accession conditions for the final three negotiating clusters — “Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth”, “Green Agenda and Sustainable Connectivity”, and “Resources, Agriculture and Cohesion Policy”.
“Ukraine now has the full set of conditions required for accession to the EU — for the first time in history,” said Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. This follows an earlier step in December last year, when Kyiv was handed the conditions for three other clusters: “Fundamentals of the EU Accession Process”, “Internal Market”, and “External Relations”.
According to EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, the technical work now underway allows for explanatory meetings to be held, reform requirements to be clearly defined, and negotiations to move forward in practice — even in the absence of a formal political decision to open negotiating chapters.
As Politico notes, the EU’s approach is to give Ukraine and Moldova — whose membership bids are closely linked — a head start on the necessary technical groundwork, despite formal talks remaining stalled by a Hungarian veto.
In effect, Yevheniia Kravchuk, deputy head of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy and a member of Ukraine’s permanent delegation to PACE, describes the informal opening of clusters as a creative way to sidestep Hungary’s obstruction of Ukraine’s European integration — without formally breaking procedure.
“All so-called benchmarks — that is, the criteria — must be met by the time of accession. During Denmark’s EU presidency, the first three clusters were opened, and now, under Cyprus’ presidency, the opening of the next three has been announced. However, Ukraine must officially close all six negotiating clusters, with the full political backing of all EU member states,” she emphasised.
Brussels’ workaround has taken shape through the “frontloading” mechanism. The Ukrainian Week previously discussed it with Liubov Akulenko, executive director of the NGO Ukrainian Center for European Policy.
“The principle of unanimity applies only to the negotiating frameworks approved individually for each country. The EU’s founding treaties do not contain such provisions and require unanimity only for the final accession decision. At the same time, from the perspective of negotiating practice, changing the negotiating framework requires a unanimous decision, meaning that each member state effectively holds a veto over replacing it with qualified majority voting,” she noted.
In an interview with The Ukrainian Week, lawyer, former Deputy Minister of Justice of Croatia, and European integration expert supporting Ukraine through the EU’s “Pravo-Justice” project, Maja Cvitan Grubišin, said that the rules and procedures of negotiations are not set in stone.
“From year to year, and from country to country, new realities emerge, and the EU integration process is constantly evolving. In this context, it is possible that the mechanisms, the circumstances, and all the efforts made by Ukraine — and a great deal has been achieved in a short time, which is worth highlighting — could pave the way for the official opening and launch of negotiations, as was recently announced,” she argued.
Ukraine’s EU accession: what comes next?
“The focus is now turning to whether EU member states will unblock the next stage this year — the formal opening of accession negotiations,” Politico notes.
The Ukrainian Center for European Policy cautions that the main risk at this stage is the rise of a “parallel reality,” where an endless technical process is used to justify the lack of political decisions.
“The next window may come after Hungary’s elections in April, when a more pro-European candidate could take office. If that happens, a strong signal for Ukraine would be the EU’s readiness to act and approve the opening of all six clusters at once. We’ll see if that materialises. Even in a best-case scenario, the political timeline suggests a decision is unlikely before autumn,” the statement adds.
At the same time, Ukraine needs to bring European standards into its national legislation. “To keep up the momentum, we must make the most of the technical stage and concentrate on the fundamentals. And these are, for a moment, things we’ve long known well — the rule of law, anti-corruption, public administration… all the areas where we’ve been stuck for years,” the Ukrainian Centre for European Policy adds.
