Briefly about the event and what will be presented
The European Commission is preparing indicative roadmaps for the four most advanced candidate countries and plans to publish them on 28 October alongside the enlargement reports. Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine are included in that list.
Marta Kos, European Commissioner for Enlargement, said these documents will indicate the next steps and will include indicative timelines and concrete tasks for the countries. She said this, reports.
Why this initiative became possible
The European Union (EU) decided to prepare roadmaps because several candidates have shown noticeable progress in meeting integration requirements. The roadmaps are intended to preserve the momentum of reforms and provide the countries with predictable steps to continue their path to membership.
The general idea is that the document will set out concrete tasks and indicative timelines for each stage of the negotiations. Kos emphasised that the path to membership will remain tied to each country’s individual achievements and that the roadmaps should increase the predictability of the process.
Why now
The timing was chosen ahead of the publication of the annual enlargement reports, which will be released on 28 October. At the moment of taking stock of the year it is easier to sum up achievements and propose the next technical steps.
In addition, the situation in the region and the progress of individual countries create a window of opportunity to agree such benchmarks. For Ukraine, an additional incentive was the need to synchronise reform efforts with the constraints and threats arising from the war.
How this will affect Ukraine and other participants in the process
The Ukrainian roadmap will differ from the documents for the other three countries because of the war. Kos said work on the Ukrainian document is ongoing and that it will have some special features to reflect the conflict’s impact on accession conditions and the practical implementation of requirements.
For Ukraine, the document will mean clearer guidance on the next technical steps — for example on opening clusters, reaching benchmarks and closing chapters. At the same time Kos noted that Ukraine is currently working on three fronts simultaneously: fighting to survive, the integration process and implementation of reforms.
The publication on 28 October will set timeframes and a list of concrete tasks that need to be completed to maintain the pace of reforms. Recall that Finance.ua previously wrote that the European Union (EU) is currently not ready to admit Ukraine through an accelerated procedure and that the main obstacle to full membership remains the high level of corruption.
