Government Has a Plan on How to Complete Negotiations with EU in Two Years – Ukraine’s Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said this at his conference.

“Such negotiations usually last 5-7-8 years. Our ambition is to complete them much faster, in two years,” he said.

According to the Prime Minister, the society’s consensus on Ukraine’s European future should help achieve this.

“Which other country could fill in the questionnaire in just three weeks? And who accomplished it for three months, from submitting the application to obtaining candidate status? However, when I talk about the possibility that negotiations with the EU will finish fast, I am not only based on this speed. The government has already developed a road map to complete this path in two years. It fixes our bottlenecks and determines how to overcome them. This gives me reasons for such optimism,” he explained.

Denys Shmyhal does not rule out that the political part of the negotiations may last longer.

“Achieving a political consensus (among the EU countries regarding Ukraine’s membership. – Ed.) will be another challenge for us. We have to find all the arguments for our partners right now. At the same time, let’s not forget that Russia continues its informational and hybrid influence on the EU and will slow down our accession,” he summarized.

Denys Shmyhal is sure that Ukraine will fulfill all the necessary requirements and recommendations by the end of the year: “We have fully written up the road map of 107 legislative and regulatory acts, all of which have already been worked out by the government. 60 have already been submitted to Rada, and the rest will be submitted within a month. So by the end of the year, we will fulfill all the necessary requirements so that Ukraine can proceed to negotiations with the EU on membership.”

According to Shmyhal, the government is counting on the support of the Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency. These issues will be raised at a joint meeting of the governments of Ukraine and the Czech Republic, which is scheduled in late October.