EU drafts ‘more cautious’ roadmap for Ukraine’s accession, with no timeline for membership, Politico reports

The European Union is reportedly drafting a more cautious roadmap for Ukraine's accession to the EU, without setting a timeline for full membership, according to Politico. Ukraine's integration into the EU should be seen in the context of its post-war future, with Brussels viewing it as a means to firmly anchor Kyiv within European institutions, making it harder for Russia to launch further aggression.

The roadmap calls for urgent and significant progress in rule of law reforms, before negotiations on individual policy areas commence. Ukraine is expected to complete negotiations on only seven of the 35 policy clusters by 2027, with areas such as education, industrial policy, and security policy being the main focus. Currently, Ukraine lags behind Moldova in its progress; Moldova, whose EU application has been considered alongside Ukraine's, is expected to finalize negotiations on over 20 areas by the same year.

Ukraine applied for EU membership shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion, and unlike NATO membership, Moscow has never objected to Ukraine joining the EU. While U.S. presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff initially set the timeline for Ukraine's EU accession by 2027, European Union officials have consistently deemed this unrealistic.

Recent attacks in Kharkiv, where Russian forces targeted a hospital on November 3, injuring 73 people and forcing 226 patients to evacuate to other medical facilities, highlight the ongoing challenges Ukraine faces in its quest for EU membership.