EU leaders approve accession talks with Ukraine, Moldova, bypassing Hungary

In a historic step, EU leaders agreed on Thursday (14 December) to open accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova and grant candidate status to Georgia, despite an earlier threat from Hungary to veto the deal.

“The European Council has decided to open accession negotiations with Ukraine & Moldova,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote on X to announce the deal.

EU leaders also decided to grant candidate status to Georgia, and said the bloc would open negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina “once the necessary degree of compliance with the membership criteria is reached”. E

EU leaders also “invited the Commission to report by March with a view to taking such a decision”.

“A clear signal of hope for their people and for our continent,” Michel said about the decision, which comes 22 months after Russia launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Ahead of the summit, the majority of EU leaders had warned that not agreeing to start negotiations would have been seen as a victory for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the decision is likely to irritate Moscow.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the decision was “a victory of Ukraine (…) a victory that motivates, inspires and strengthens.”

Moldova’s President Maia Sandu welcomed the step, saying her country was “committed to the hard work needed to become an EU member.”

The much-awaited step came surprisingly on the first day of the summit, amid expectations that Hungary would be the main stumbling block to a deal on the EU’s €50 billion financial aid package to keep Ukraine’s war-torn economy afloat and the political decision to open formal accession talks with the country.

“There has been a decision of the European Council on this matter which has not been opposed by any member of the European Council,” a senior European official told reporters in Brussels.

Way the deal was made

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán left the room when the decision on enlargement was taken, knowing the other leaders would go ahead and vote on Ukraine, according to several EU diplomats who were briefed on the discussion.

Orbán “was momentarily absent from the room in a pre-agreed and constructive manner,” one EU official confirmed. The move, known in Brussels as ‘constructive abstention’, allowed for a unanimous decision from EU26 leaders.

“If someone is absent, they are absent. Legally, it is totally valid,” the official added.

It is a highly unusual way to approve a decision – especially such a major one – even though EU diplomats have long been very creative about how to strike deals.

According to four EU diplomats, the idea for the Hungarian leader to leave the summit room while the other EU26 leaders approved the start of accession talks came from Germany’s Chancellor Scholz.

“We were all surprised it happened so fast, (…) at some point [German Chancellor] Scholz suggested to Orbán to take a break and leave the room, the latter did,” one EU diplomat said.

The move followed Thursday morning talks between European Council President Charles Michel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and French President Emmanuel Macron before the EU summit kicked off, Euractiv understands.

Earlier on Wednesday (13 December), the European Commission restored Hungary’s access to up to €10.2 billion in refunds for economic projects after finding it had fulfilled conditions on the independence of its judiciary.

Although EU officials deny any link between both decisions, EU diplomats agree that the step helped in swaying Budapest’s decision.

However, shortly afterwards, Orbán had very different words to describe the decision.

The Hungarian leader took to social media, stating that “starting accession negotiations with Ukraine is a bad decision. Hungary did not participate in the decision”.

In a video message, Orbán said: “Ukraine is not ready to start negotiations on EU membership – it is a completely senseless, irrational, and wrong decision to open negotiations with Ukraine under the circumstances, and Hungary is not changing its position on this.”

“However, 26 other countries have insisted that this decision be taken. Therefore, Hungary has decided that if 26 other countries decide to do so, they should go their own way and (…) has abstained from the decision today,” he added.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo had a blunt message his Hungarian counterpart later in the evening.

If one decides not to veto the decision, “afterwards you just will have to keep your mouth shut” De Croo told reporters, but added quickly: “I should not have said that.”

Next steps

The move is likely to boost the bloc’s fledgling enlargement process, it only allows the start of what is likely to be a lengthy negotiating process.

The EU’s accession process consists of four steps, which will all require unanimous approval from EU leaders.

With Thursday’s decision, the first step, the decision to open the negotiations, was taken.

Next, a negotiating framework for the talks will need to be drawn up, based on a European Commission proposal, for Ukraine to prepare to implement EU legislation.

European Commission officials said in November that the technical preparatory work on a negotiating framework can start immediately after a political decision is taken and the EU’s executive will be ready to send its negotiating teams to Kyiv and Chișinău.

The EU’s screening process will assess which laws need to be aligned with the bloc’s entire body of current legislation, the so-called acquis.

The screening process normally takes between one and two years. “But we want to go fast and think we can do this in six months,” an EU official said earlier in November.

For both Ukraine and Moldova, accession talks themselves are likely to take years.

After negotiations are finished, the European Commission gives its opinion on whether Ukraine is ready to join the EU, a step that has to be unanimously approved by all EU member states as well as the European Parliament.

At the end of the road, EU leaders will sign an accession treaty, to be ratified by all of the bloc’s member states, which can be done either by the respective national parliaments or through a referendum.

Separately, the European Commission will provide a progress assessment of the fulfilment of the outstanding of seven recommendations for both Ukraine and Moldova likely by March 2024.

**Julia Tar, Aurelié Pugnet contributed to the story.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]