How Ukraine got the European Commission to recognise its progress and what EU is promising for 2027
In Ukraine's case, the roadmap is clearly more optimistic than expected and certainly more ambitious than the pace of reforms demonstrated by Kyiv. Brussels, however, explains that it sees an acceleration in the process and expects this trend to continue.
The report presents a paradox. The European Commission acknowledges that reforms in Ukraine have slowed significantly over the past year, yet its assessment of Ukraine's readiness for EU membership has improved, recording the largest increase in the country's history. This includes the critical Fundamentals chapters.
This distinction has now been formalised, helping the EU acknowledge that it is already ready for enlargement.
With the agreement of all member states, the European Commission has identified four promising candidates: Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine. On 4 November, roadmaps and timelines were presented in Brussels, outlining how each country is expected to progress towards EU membership.
Ukraine has not yet completed the opening of all the negotiating clusters. The two remaining clusters – the most challenging ones – are awaiting Hungary's approval. Nevertheless, all of European Pravda's sources in Kyiv and Brussels are confident that this will happen by the end of 2026.
But the most ambitious target for Ukraine has been set for 2027.
The Commission wants the first of these chapters to be closed in the first half of the year. This means Ukraine must complete the necessary IBAR reforms and submit its report to Brussels as early as April, or early May at the latest.
The roadmap aims for Ukraine to close seven negotiating chapters in 2027 (education and culture; intellectual property; social policy; enterprise and industrial policy; science and research; external relations; foreign, security and defence policy).
Kyiv is even more ambitious. The Ukrainian roadmap explicitly provides for this possibility if Ukraine progresses faster than anticipated.
The European Commission states that the pace of reforms has slowed significantly in eight chapters, even compared with 2025, although concerns about the speed of reforms had already been raised last year.
To give Ukraine a better assessment in Chapters 23 and 24, the Commission had to take account of reforms implemented in the autumn, even though the report normally assesses results achieved between 1 September of the previous year and 1 September of the current year.
Ukraine's scores have increased across all areas, including combating corruption. This is despite the fact that there were no reforms in this area during the autumn, while key documents such as the anti-corruption strategy remain unadopted. This is because the EU takes not only legislative changes into account, but also the work of Ukrainian civil society, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO).
Officials in Brussels presumably understood that a positive assessment could be misinterpreted by the Ukrainian government. They therefore explicitly emphasised that the EU is fully aware of the seriousness of the problems.
There are two main reasons why Brussels is looking for creative ways to present Ukraine in a more favourable light.
First, the EU recognises that Ukraine's accession process is taking place during a full-scale war and therefore requires special consideration.
Second, the EU has no desire to decouple Ukraine and Moldova, even though Chișinău currently appears better prepared than Kyiv to report on its progress.
The main question is whether Ukraine, and above all its parliament, will be willing to take the necessary steps to achieve EU accession, or whether it will go back to stalling on reforms despite the consequences.