The president of the European Council guaranteed this Tuesday that he will “work hard” with the leaders of the European Union (EU) to approve formal negotiations with Ukraine for enlargement in December, without promising a positive result due to “political difficulties.”
“There will be this meeting [do Conselho Europeu em dezembro], but I can’t predict what we will do, what the result will be. “I can work hard to try to achieve a positive result and that is my purpose and my personal conviction: we need a positive result,” said Charles Michel upon his arrival in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, before a delegation of European journalists, including the agency. Lusa.
He noted that “this meeting is not the end of the process [pois] “In the future we will discuss many times how we support Ukraine, how we support the other candidate countries, how we strengthen European defense, how we build greater European resilience,”
“This vision that the European Council is black or white, it cannot be anything and everything, is often more complex than that,” added the president of the European Council.
Referring to the European summit in December, when EU leaders will discuss the start of formal negotiations with Ukraine, Charles Michel said that “the political difficulties of this meeting should not be underestimated”, given that “there are many difficult issues at the same time”. “, these being, in addition to enlargement, the review of the long-term European budget, the new pact on migration and the reform of budgetary rules.
“This means that in the coming days, in the coming weeks, we will continue to try to build a united position in the European Council, as we have done in the past. […] but this is a challenge because they are important issues that are on the table,” he highlighted in this conversation with the delegation of journalists accompanying him, among them Lusa.
A few minutes after meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, Charles Michel also assured that European availability towards Ukraine is no less than at the beginning of the war.
“European leaders are extremely serious and are convinced that we must make the right decision because what is at stake is our security, our stability, our prosperity in the coming decades,” he stressed.
At a time when the EU has already allocated 82 billion to Ukraine and when criticism is arising for an alleged double standard, Charles Michel said: “The biggest mistake we would make, the one we would make for our children and our grandchildren, would be to fall in this trap.”
Charles Michel’s visit comes three weeks before EU leaders decide to start formal negotiations for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, after the European Commission recommended, in the middle of this month, that the Council will advance in the face of efforts made by Kiev to meet the requirements. , although imposing conditions such as the fight against corruption.
At the time, the community executive stressed that Ukraine must make progress, which will be evaluated in a report to be published in March 2024.
The decision now corresponds to the Council of the EU, in the General Affairs group, and should be taken on December 12, but the final approval will be given by the heads of Government and State of the Union, who will meet at a European summit on A few days later, on December 14 and 15, in Brussels.
Given the disagreements between European ministers, the last word belongs to the EU leaders, a European source told Lusa.
Ukraine obtained candidate country status in mid-2022.
Enlargement is the process by which states join the EU, after meeting the political and economic requirements.
Source: TSF
