By Galina Korol | 2024-07-08

KYIV -- The start of European Union (EU) accession negotiations for Moldova and Ukraine late last month is a historic step for the entire region, officials and analysts say.

June 25 in Luxembourg was the setting for the first intergovernmental conference at which Ukraine, Moldova and the EU introduced their delegations that will participate in the talks.

"Today is the day we begin the countdown to our membership in the European Union," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on his official Telegram channel.

"This is very good news for the people of Ukraine, Moldova, and the entire European Union," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. "Wishing you a successful start of the negotiations!"

Two and a half years ago it seemed unrealistic that the candidacy application would be approved for a country at war, analysts say.

"It is .... probably one of the decisive events up until this point in our history in the 21st century," said Serhii Stukanov of Kyiv, founder of the Donbas Integration Institute.

"Basically this means ... getting onto a course that should bring us away from the past, which was tied to the Russian world, and into the European family," he told Kontur.

Negotiation framework

The EU procedure sets out 35 policy areas -- known as negotiation chapters -- that make up the membership criteria a candidate country must meet.

In addition, 33 chapters are broken down into six thematic clusters. Every EU country may have its own stipulations, which Ukraine will also need to take into account during the negotiations.

"This stage of the negotiations will be the most substantive and rather long," Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst and director of the Penta Center for Political Studies, told Kontur.

Moreover, in some areas, implementing European laws in Ukraine will mean changing 3,000 laws, and that is considerable work, he said.

An example of this is fighting corruption, which is a complicated topic, he said.

"That's one of the central topics for Ukraine or guaranteeing the rule of law," said Fesenko.

Economic conflicts of interest could be just as complicated for Ukraine.

"Ukraine ... is a very serious competitor for agricultural producers in Europe," explained Fesenko. "We're also a competitor in metallurgy and several other industries."

Such areas will require "the most advantageous compromises. Quotas for Ukraine on the markets will need to be set," he said.

War hampering membership process

The EU accession process takes an average of seven years from the start of talks to the granting of membership.

This was typical for the large group of post-communist countries that joined the EU in 2004, observers told Kontur.

The countries for which the process was longest -- almost eight years -- were Croatia and Portugal. Türkiye has been waiting since 1999.

"Unfortunately, the Russia-Ukraine war isn't allowing us to open [the window of opportunity] completely because the war is meant to prevent Ukraine from integrating," Stanislav Zhelikhovsky, an international relations specialist from Kyiv, told Kontur. "Putin ... is continuing this aggression so that Ukraine can’t integrate into the EU or NATO."

"It's great that Europe is supporting us in this situation and sees us as an integral part of it," he said.

"We hope that the EU will continue to help us fight the aggression and consequently speed up our European integration."

Moldova, like Ukraine, is facing many challenges because popular opinion in a candidate country influences the final decision on accepting a country into the EU, he added.

Dangerous games

Moldova is expected to hold a referendum on EU membership in October.

Meanwhile, Russia is using various tactics to try to sway public opinion there and knock the country off the EU path.

"We're seeing that there are risks that Moldova could quit the process," said Zhelikhovsky.

In Moldova's unstable political system, pro-Russian "politicians or political actors that could change the country's outward path could potentially come into power," Zhelikhovsky said.

"At the same time, Russian players long for power there, and it's crucial for them that the country ... drop out of the race."

Zhelikhovsky expressed hope that such misgivings will not come true and that -- as the Council of Europe predicts -- Ukraine and Moldova will sign and ratify their agreements in 2030.

Stukanov shares this optimistic outlook.

"The year 2030 will come fast, and if we look back at how much we've already gone through to extricate ourselves from the Soviet Union, I think that five to seven years will happen in the blink of an eye, and God willing, we'll already be in the [EU]," he said.