European Affairs Deputy Minister Marilena Raouna on Thursday said she is “cautiously optimistic” that the European Union’s 27 member states could reach an agreement to commence accession negotiations with both Moldova and Ukraine next month.
“Enlargement remains one of the key priorities of the Cyprus presidency of the Council of the EU and we are working hard to this end. Nothing has been concluded yet, but we are cautiously optimistic that at the next general affairs council, we may reach an agreement to open ‘cluster one’,” she told the Cyprus Mail.
An agreement to open negotiations for a candidate country to accede to the EU requires unanimity among member states, with all 27 therefore required to agree if the question is put to them at the next general affairs council in Brussels on June 16.
Negotiations are divided into six thematic clusters – “fundamentals”, “internal market”, “competitiveness and inclusive growth”, “green agenda and sustainable connectivity”, “resources, agriculture, and cohesion”, and “external relations”.
The first cluster, which may be opened for Moldova and Ukraine next month, comprises seven chapters – “judiciary and fundamental rights”, “justice, freedom, and security”, “public procurement”, “statistics”, “financial control”, “economic criteria”, “functioning of democratic institutions”, and “public administration reform”.
Per EU law, it is the last negotiating cluster to be closed, despite being the first to be opened.
In total, there are 33 chapters across the seven clusters, with current candidate member states finding themselves at various stages of progress in negotiations.
Montenegro and Albania have both opened all 33 chapters, with Montenegro having completed 14 and Albania yet to complete any, while Serbia has opened 22 chapters and competed two, and Turkey has opened 16 chapters and completed one, though negotiations with the latter have been frozen since 2016.
It has now been almost 13 years since Croatia, the last country to join the EU, did so in 2013, and in the intervening years, one member state, the United Kingdom, has left the bloc.
This period between new member states’ joining is the longest since the 20 and a half years between the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952 and the accession of Denmark, Ireland and the UK to the European Communities in 1973.
Raouna had said last week that enlargement is an “indispensable commitment” for the EU, stressing that “our union is a project that has constantly evolved, not despite crises, but because of them, in many cases, because it is those moments that have driven the deeper integration of the European Union“.
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