Ukraine aims to finish EU talks by 2028. Brussels agrees—on one condition: Ukraine’s lawmakers stop dragging their feet

The European Commission in its annual report on November 4th reported that Ukraine is ready to commence all remaining rounds of EU membership talks, but the country must accelerate reforms as its parliament has been delaying them. Brussels supports Kyiv's goal of finishing the talks by the end of 2028, but it emphasized that it is crucial for Ukraine to continue speeding up reforms to achieve this.

The report highlighted that no laws passed in the past year significantly enhanced Ukraine's anti-corruption framework. Russia's war has made Ukraine dependent on foreign money to pay salaries, pensions, and repairs while its own revenue goes towards defense, creating a financing gap of tens of billions of dollars. The upcoming financing gap makes the speed of Ukraine's legislature a matter of cash as well as membership.

A tax on cheap foreign parcels, passed only on the third attempt in October, was necessary to unlock a €3.7 billion EU payment. Accession talks are divided into six clusters of chapters, and Ukraine has opened four of them over the past year, with the Commission assessing the remaining two as ready to open. However, Brussels insists that Ukraine must continue accelerating the pace of reforms to meet the deadline of closing negotiations by the end of 2028.

Moldova, which applied alongside Ukraine, received a different response from Brussels. While the EU urged Ukraine to keep its current pace and called its goal of finishing talks by early 2028 ambitious but achievable, Moldova was not granted the same deadline. The EU's overall assessment of Ukraine's progress was mixed. The Commission gave Ukraine a good level of preparation in energy and foreign, security, and defense policy, where it made "very good progress."

However, it found that Ukraine was at an early stage on free movement of workers, social policy, and employment, and on its future payments into the EU budget. The report specifically credits Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies with a better grade, citing increased high-level corruption cases brought to investigation, trial, and final conviction, including top officials and judges.

Yet, the report emphasized that no laws were adopted to significantly advance the anti-corruption legal framework, calling the slow adoption of the recommended reforms a major concern that requires urgent action. The 10 priority reforms that Kyiv agreed with Brussels in December 2025 remain mostly outstanding, and progress on the rule of law roadmap was limited, with many law enforcement reforms delayed.