Estonia wants EU to open all negotiating clusters with Ukraine ahead of June summit
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna wants the European Union to focus on the process that will lead Ukraine to full EU membership and to open all six accession negotiating clusters ahead of the June summit.
As reported by ERR, an Estonian public broadcaster, last week it emerged that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had proposed granting Ukraine associate member status without voting rights in the European Union for the duration of accession talks.
Under Merz's proposal, Ukraine would, among other things, be able to appoint a non-voting commissioner to the European Commission and send non-voting representatives to the European Parliament, as well as gradually gain access to the EU budget.
The European Union has no associate members. Previously, the EU concluded association agreements with candidate countries – Estonia, for example, concluded such an agreement in 1995, which laid the groundwork for close cooperation and created the necessary legal framework to prepare the country for EU accession.
The Estonian foreign minister noted that the EU must now focus on the process that will lead Ukraine to full membership. To this end, all six accession negotiating clusters must be opened in June.
Tsahkna also said that Merz's proposal, now made public, had already been circulating when Hungary fully blocked EU progress on enlargement more than two years ago.
"Meanwhile, the situation has changed: a new government has been formed in Hungary, and at this point our recommendation and position is to move clearly forward within the agreed enlargement process – namely, to open all six negotiating chapters ahead of the June Council meeting and to move forward from there. These chapters should be opened for both Ukraine and Moldova. So this alternative path would not advance that work at this stage, and therefore our very clear recommendation and guidance also to other member states is that we will now focus on this full membership process," Tsahkna said.
Tsahkna emphasised that it is currently difficult to assess how quickly Ukraine's accession talks could progress.
"It is very difficult to say, as there are very complex chapters – for example, on agriculture, on free movement of labour and also budgetary questions for the future if Ukraine joins the European Union," Tsahkna said, adding that the topic is highly political.
Marko Mihkelson, chair of the Riigikogu Foreign Affairs Committee, stated that neither Estonia nor Ukraine wants Ukraine to be granted associate member status in the EU.
Mihkelson also noted that it is now important for accession talks to begin next month.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha neither endorsed nor categorically rejected Friedrich Merz's idea of a new format for EU-Ukraine relations but reiterated Kyiv's position.
Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Taras Kachka stated that Ukraine does not object to the element of the German chancellor's "associate membership" proposal concerning participation in EU institutional work prior to full accession.