European Parliament President Roberta Mitsola expressed her hope that the European Union would begin negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova to join it by the end of the year, calling for not “disappointing” the hopes of these two candidate countries.

In an interview on Tuesday with European Newsroom, which includes European news agencies including Agence France-Presse, the Maltese official said in response to a question about the date proposed by European Council President Charles Michel to expand the European Union in 2030, “Instead of focusing on... History: Although it is good to have a date on the table, let us focus on starting accession negotiations by the end of the year, hopefully.”

She added, "If Ukraine and Moldova are ready, accession negotiations can begin and then measures can be taken gradually, step by step. Each country follows its own path, but let us not disappoint the hopes of millions of people who consider Europe their home."

The President of the European Parliament has always shown her support for Ukraine and its accession to the European Union. She was the first official of a European Union body to visit Kiev, in April 2022, after the start of the Russian invasion of the country.

In June 2022, the European Union granted Ukraine candidate status for EU membership in a symbolic gesture, as well as to Moldova. In return, he refused to grant this status to Georgia, demanding more reforms from Tbilisi.

In order to move to the next stage of opening accession negotiations, the European Commission has set seven criteria for Kiev as conditions for starting accession negotiations, in particular strengthening the fight against rampant corruption and carrying out judicial reforms.
In an interim assessment in June, the Commission assessed that two criteria had been met and that the other five criteria were “at a certain level of progress”.

The Commission is supposed to submit a report at the end of October on the status of the progress made by Ukraine and Moldova before the 27 member states discuss the issue during the Brussels summit in mid-December.

These negotiations may take some time before they lead to accession.
In addition to Ukraine, five countries from the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) and Moldova received candidate status for accession. Some of them began accession negotiations more than ten years ago. While negotiations with Türkiye stopped several years ago.