Sources: EU to open three more accession clusters for Ukraine on 17 March
The EU has decided to hand Ukraine the conditions to start technical work on three more clusters within accession talks on 17 March, meaning Ukraine will be able to hold technical consultations on all six clusters.
According to several anonymous EU sources, starting 17 March, Ukraine will be able to conduct technical-level accession talks with the EU across all six negotiating clusters.
The EU's negotiating positions (draft common position, DCP) with requirements for the necessary reforms and changes within negotiating clusters No. 3 Competitiveness and inclusive growth, No. 4 Green agenda and sustainable connectivity and No. 5 Resources, agriculture and cohesion policy will be handed to Ukraine on the morning of Tuesday 17 March, in Brussels on the sidelines of a meeting of the EU General Affairs Council.
Sources told European Pravda this will be an informal meeting in a breakfast format.
Taras Kachka, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, is expected to attend the event.
It is officially known that after the Ukrainian breakfast ends – at 09:45 Kyiv time – a press conference will take place with Ukrainian and EU officials.
Later the same day, a similar meeting is planned for Moldova, to be represented by Deputy Prime Minister Cristina Gherasimov, with Chişinău also receiving negotiating positions on the same clusters.
European Pravda explained the initiative to continue technical accession talks with Ukraine despite the veto on opening negotiating clusters, known as "frontloading", in the article Frontloading: EU's alternative path to break Hungary's veto on Ukraine's accession talks
"Frontloading" will allow Ukraine to carry out all technical and legislative work needed for EU accession without waiting for Hungary to lift its objections and allow the official opening of negotiating clusters.
The "technical opening" of the last three negotiating clusters with Ukraine and Moldova was initially planned to take place on the sidelines of an informal EU General Affairs Council meeting in Cyprus on 2-3 March, but it was postponed until May due to the war in the Middle East.
On 11 December in Lviv, the EU announced the launch of a new format of technical talks with Ukraine that are not subject to a Hungarian veto at an informal meeting of the General Affairs Council of the European Union.
Read also: Plan B for Ukraine: how Orbán was barred from blocking Kyiv's EU bid