Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal hopes that Ukraine will receive the status of EU candidate country in June 2022 at the latest. He stated the following in his video.
“We’ve met the leaders of the European Union in Kyiv. We’ve got a questionnaire that we must fill in in order to achieve candidate status for EU membership. We’ve started to do that. We are expecting that Ukraine receives the status not later than in June this year,” Mr. Shmyhal said.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that uncertainty about Ukraine’s membership in the EU was exhausting. That is why he appealed to the leaders of the EU before the start of the large-scale intervention.
On 28 February 2022, on the fifth day of russia’s war against Ukraine, Zelenskyy signed an official request to join immediately the EU under the simplified procedure. Slovakia initiated such a procedure for Ukraine and many EU countries, including Hungary, supported the decision about the fast acquisition of membership.
On 1 March 2022, the European parliament recommended providing Ukraine with the status of a candidate country to the EU. And on 7 March 2022, the EU launched the procedure of considering applications by Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova for membership. The same day, with a reference to the European diplomats, the Bloomberg agency wrote about refusals of many European countries to provide Ukraine with the status the same week. Germany, the Netherlands, and some other states insist on the European Commission’s assessment of Ukraine’s readiness for joining the EU before they’ll approve a political decision regarding the candidate country's status.
The leaders of the EU approved the declaration that says “yes” to Ukraine. President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda said that and called this decision the historical one.
On 21 March 2022, the European Commission started to work on conclusions regarding Ukraine’s application. After processing the application, Ukraine can get the candidate country status. The process of joining might take years.