EU membership talks with Ukraine: "The struggle continues" – Ukraine's Foreign Minister

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said that the EU is pressing ahead with discussions on opening negotiations on Ukraine's accession and "the struggle continues", even though there is strong support for Ukraine’s membership among EU countries.

Source: Kuleba, speaking to the media after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels; European Pravda

Quote: "The general mood and general signal is an unprecedented level of support for the opening of negotiations on Ukraine's EU membership. At the same time, the decision itself has not yet been made, and the struggle for this decision will continue not only in the coming days but also during the meeting of the European Council. This is already obvious to everyone."

Details: Kuleba predicts that discussions on the opening of accession talks with Ukraine at the leaders' summit will go on "right up to the last minute".

According to Kuleba, Ukraine’s partners are amazed that Ukraine has implemented all the recommendations in a month. 

"Now the European Union must demonstrate its ability to keep its word and ensure unity," he added. 

The Foreign Minister noted that the meeting had also covered possible consequences if the EU does not decide to start negotiations with Ukraine following the summit. 

According to Kuleba, representatives of EU member states argued that this decision should be made not just for Ukraine’s sake but in the interests of the EU itself, and that the absence of a decision would play against the European Union.

"This decision will still happen. If someone wants it to happen not this week, but a few weeks or months later, that’s bad, but the decision will still be made, because you can't stop the course of history. And history moves very simply: Ukraine will be a member of the EU, it's only a matter of time and price. And our task is to make the price as low as possible and the time as short as possible," Kuleba said.  

Background:

• Prior to this, Dmytro Kuleba said he had met with Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in person for the first time during the full-scale war. 
• As is well known, Budapest is threatening to block all the EU decisions on Ukraine that are due to be considered at the leaders' summit on 14-15 December. 
• Andrii Yermak, Head of the President’s Office, had a phone call with Szijjártó last week. However, after this conversation, Orbán called Spain, which currently holds the presidency of the EU Council, and urged it not to include the issue of opening negotiations with Ukraine on the summit’s agenda. 
• On Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talked briefly with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during a visit for the inauguration ceremony of Javier Milei, the newly elected president of Argentina.

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