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Ukraine is set to become a candidate country to join the European Union on Thursday, a major diplomatic push by Brussels designed to show a united front against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
The move – and similar ones for Moldova and Georgia, other countries under threat of Russian expansionism – was expected to be approved by EU leaders in Brussels later on Thursday. It would come just hours after the European parliament overwhelmingly approved candidacy status for the three states.
“Ukraine is going through hell for a simple reason: its desire to join the EU,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said earlier this week.
Candidacy status would kick start a years-long process, but it marks a huge geopolitical shift and is likely to anger Russia as it struggles to impose its will on Ukraine.
Mass protests in Kyiv in 2014 ousted Ukraine’s then-president after he broke a promise to develop closer ties with the EU.
The expected green light “is a signal to Moscow that Ukraine, and also other countries from the former Soviet Union, cannot belong to the Russian spheres of influence”, Ukraine’s ambassador to the EU, Vsevolod Chentsov, told Reuters.
Friday marks four months since Russian president Vladimir Putin sent troops across the border in what he calls a “special military operation” partly necessitated by western encroachment into what Russia considers its sphere of influence.
au.news.yahoo.com
The move – and similar ones for Moldova and Georgia, other countries under threat of Russian expansionism – was expected to be approved by EU leaders in Brussels later on Thursday. It would come just hours after the European parliament overwhelmingly approved candidacy status for the three states.
“Ukraine is going through hell for a simple reason: its desire to join the EU,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said earlier this week.
Candidacy status would kick start a years-long process, but it marks a huge geopolitical shift and is likely to anger Russia as it struggles to impose its will on Ukraine.
Mass protests in Kyiv in 2014 ousted Ukraine’s then-president after he broke a promise to develop closer ties with the EU.
The expected green light “is a signal to Moscow that Ukraine, and also other countries from the former Soviet Union, cannot belong to the Russian spheres of influence”, Ukraine’s ambassador to the EU, Vsevolod Chentsov, told Reuters.
Friday marks four months since Russian president Vladimir Putin sent troops across the border in what he calls a “special military operation” partly necessitated by western encroachment into what Russia considers its sphere of influence.
Ukraine set to get EU candidacy status as Brussels pushes back against Moscow
‘History is on the march,’ says European Commission chief as bloc considers possible expansion
