On 14 December 2023 the European Council decided to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova and to grant Georgia candidate status. What was approved, what is pending and how long it may take.
On Thursday 14 December 2023, the heads of state or government of the 27 member states, meeting in Brussels as the European Council, decided to open EU accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova. It is a major political step, but it is not membership: the negotiations will take years and have not yet effectively begun.
What was decided
Besides opening negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, the European Council granted Georgia candidate-country status, on condition that it carries out the pending reforms, and declared itself ready to open negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina once it reaches the necessary degree of compliance with the membership criteria. Ukraine applied for membership on 28 February 2022 and Moldova on 3 March, and both were granted candidate status on 23 June 2022.
The decision rests on the enlargement report the European Commission published on 8 November, in which it recommended opening negotiations with both countries. The Commission found that Ukraine had made “substantial progress” on the seven steps set out in its opinion and Moldova “important progress” on its nine. It recommended that the Council adopt the negotiating frameworks once both countries have taken certain key measures, and said it would report to the Council on progress by March 2024.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán had said he would oppose it. Because the decision requires unanimity, his absence allowed it to be adopted: according to EU officials he left the room while it was decided, and he later said Hungary had abstained and that the decision was a mistake. Under EU rules, an abstention does not prevent adoption. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky hailed it as a victory for Ukraine, and European Council president Charles Michel as a signal of hope.
What remains to be done
Opening negotiations is not joining. The Council must approve, unanimously, the negotiating framework for each country, which the Commission recommended doing once both have adopted certain key measures; the Commission will report on progress by March 2024. The chapters of European legislation are then negotiated one by one and, at the end, the accession treaty must be approved by the 27 member states and by the candidate country. That is why people speak of years, not months.
The same summit failed to close the revision of the 2021–2027 EU budget that would have funded an instrument of up to €50 billion for Ukraine over four years: 26 states backed it and one, Hungary, opposed it, and leaders will meet again in early 2024 to decide it with all 27.
What changes for businesses and families
In the short term, nothing: neither Ukraine nor Moldova starts applying EU rules, and the rules for doing business with them do not change. In the medium term, the process requires both countries to bring their legislation into line with the EU’s body of law, which matters to anyone with business, investments or suppliers there, and it will happen gradually and over long timescales. The war in Ukraine adds uncertainty to the timetable. For anyone operating or investing in those countries, what matters will not be an accession date, which nobody can set today, but the intermediate steps: approval of the negotiating frameworks, the Commission’s March report and the opening of the first chapters.
A decision of this importance opens a process, it does not close one: what counts is what gets done at each stage.
This article is general information. It is not legal, tax or investment advice, and it does not take anyone’s particular circumstances into account.
