Ukraine has fully fulfilled four of seven EU candidacy criteria

The European Commission provided recommendations to three out of seven criteria Ukraine needs to fulfill to join the European Union. They believe that the country has completely fulfilled four criteria.

Radio Svoboda reports on the Ukraine report, citing an internal document of the European Commission.

The European Commission believes that Ukraine fully met the following criteria:

• legislation on the selection procedure of judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in accordance with the recommendations of the Venice Commission;
• the integrity check of candidates for membership in the High Council of Justice and the creation of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine;
• compliance of anti-money laundering legislation with FATF standards and approval of a strategic plan for reforming the entire law enforcement sector;
• media industry reform – bringing Ukrainian legislation into line with the EU Directive on audiovisual media services.

Recommendations from the European Commission accompany the other three criteria. The EC believes that the criterion of the fight against corruption is not considered complete.

As part of this step, the European Commission expected the appointment of a new head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) and the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).

The document of the European Commission says, "Ukraine should still adopt a law on increasing the staffing of the NABU and remove the norms limiting the powers of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) to continue the verification of assets that have already passed the verification process from the law on prevention of corruption and limit the powers of the NACP to verify property acquired by the declarants before joining the civil service."

As for limiting the excessive influence of oligarchs, which Brussels also expected from Kyiv, it was said that "Ukraine should still approve the law on lobbying in accordance with European standards."

Regarding the reform of legislation on national minorities, in accordance with the recommendations of the Venice Commission, the EC says not all of the criteria have been implemented.

The European Commission says Ukraine needs to implement the rest of the comments mentioned: "in the conclusion of June 2023 and its subsequent conclusion of October 2023 by amending the laws on the state language, mass media, and education."

What we know about Ukraine joining the European Union

On June 17, 2022, the European Commission recommended granting Ukraine the status of a candidate for EU membership and put forward seven conditions for the start of accession negotiations:

• reform of the Constitutional Court,
• continuation of judicial reform,
• anti-corruption, including the appointment of the head of the SAP,
• fight against money laundering,
• anti-oligarchic law,
• aligning audiovisual legislation with European legislation,
• change in legislation on national minorities.

On November 8, the European Commission will provide an assessment of Ukraine's progress on the way to EU membership in its annual report. Most likely, it will be positive, but additional conditions may be put forward to Kyiv.

Recently, President Zelensky said that this decision could be the strongest in a decade: Ukraine was waiting for negotiations.