Four and a Half Years After Applying to Join the EU, How Far Has Ukraine’s Negotiation Gone?

On 28 February 2022, five days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine applied to join the European Union (EU). The European Commission’s opinion, issued on 17 June of the same year, records this date at its opening.

More than four and a half years later, in September 2026, Ukraine is an EU candidate country partway through accession negotiations. The first negotiating area was opened on 15 June 2026. No date for accession has been set.

Accession is decided by the consent of every member state

Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, one of the EU’s founding treaties, provides that any European state that respects and is committed to promoting the values set out in Article 2 may apply for membership. Article 2’s values are human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. Applications are addressed to the Council of the EU, which decides unanimously after consulting the European Commission and obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, given by a majority of its members.

The conditions for accession, and the adjustments to the founding treaties that accession requires, are set out in an agreement between the member states and the applicant state. Every party to that agreement must ratify it in accordance with its own constitutional procedures (same article). In other words, even after negotiations conclude, a ratification stage remains.

The conclusions of the European Council held in Copenhagen in 1993 are often cited as the yardstick for this assessment. The European Commission’s opinion quotes the requirements as follows: stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities; a functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the EU; and the ability to take on the obligations of membership.

A candidate country four months after applying

According to the opinion, the Council of the EU asked the European Commission on 7 March 2022 to give its opinion on the application. In its opinion of 17 June, the European Commission recommends granting Ukraine candidate status. This came with the condition that “the following steps are taken,” and it listed seven measures (summarized):

• Adopt and implement a law setting out the procedure for selecting judges of the Constitutional Court, including a preliminary selection based on an assessment of integrity and professional competence
• Complete the integrity vetting of candidates for the High Council of Justice, and complete the selection of candidates to establish a High Qualification Commission of Judges
• Strengthen the fight against corruption, particularly high-level corruption, and build a track record of investigations, prosecutions and convictions. Complete the appointment of a new head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, and start and complete the selection of a new director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau
• Align anti-money-laundering legislation with the standards of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and adopt a strategic plan for reform of the entire law-enforcement sector
• Implement, in a legally sound way and in line with the Venice Commission’s opinion, a law curbing the excessive influence of oligarchs
• Adopt a media law aligned with the EU’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive, and empower an independent media regulator
• Complete reform of the legal framework for national minorities and adopt mechanisms for its implementation

Six days later, on 23 June, the European Council decided to grant candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova (conclusions of the meeting of 23–24 June, paragraph 11). According to the European Commission, this was a unanimous decision by the leaders of all 27 member states. The same conclusions state that the Council will decide on the next step once the conditions set out in the opinion have “been fully met” (paragraph 12).

From the decision to open negotiations to the first intergovernmental conference

On 8 November 2023, the European Commission included Ukraine for the first time in its annual enlargement policy report (the Enlargement Package) and recommended opening accession negotiations. The announcement cited significant progress on the seven measures, including the introduction of a transparent preliminary selection mechanism for Constitutional Court judges, reform of judicial governance bodies, a growing track record of investigations and convictions in high-level corruption, and efforts to address the influence of oligarchs.

On 14 December 2023, the European Council decided to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova (conclusions of the meeting of 14–15 December, paragraph 15). The “negotiating framework,” which sets out how the negotiations proceed, was to be adopted by the Council only after the measures recommended by the European Commission had been taken.

The first intergovernmental conference was held in Luxembourg on 25 June 2024, which the European Commission treats as the formal start of accession negotiations. In July, “screening” began — a chapter-by-chapter check of how far Ukraine’s legislation aligns with the full body of EU law (the acquis) — and it concluded on 30 September 2025.

Grouping 33 chapters into six clusters

The negotiations cover the whole of EU law and policy. This is divided into subject-based “chapters,” which are further grouped into six “clusters” for the negotiations to proceed. This follows the negotiating method revised in 2020, and the correspondence between chapters and clusters appears in a list published by the European Commission department responsible for enlargement policy.

Per the same document, the Fundamentals cluster is the first to open and the last to close. How this cluster progresses sets the pace for the whole negotiation, and is also used in deciding whether to open or close other clusters.

Every milestone requires unanimity in the Council of the EU. Setting the benchmarks for opening a cluster (opening benchmarks), setting the interim benchmarks for the Fundamentals cluster, the decision to open other clusters, setting the closing benchmarks for each chapter, and the decision to provisionally close a chapter are all made unanimously by the Council, based on the European Commission’s assessments and proposals.

15 June 2026: the “Fundamentals” cluster opens

On 26 June 2025, before screening had concluded, the European Council’s conclusions recorded, regarding Ukraine, that “the text set out in document EUCO 16/25 was strongly endorsed by the Heads of State or Government of 26 Member States.” This text does not form part of conclusions issued in the name of all 27 states. That text states that it “duly takes note” of the European Commission’s assessment that the Fundamentals cluster was ready to be opened.

In its Enlargement Package of 4 November 2025, the European Commission assessed that Ukraine had met the conditions for opening Clusters 1 (Fundamentals), 6 (External Relations) and 2 (Internal Market), judged that the remaining three were likely to meet the conditions as well, and said it would work to enable the Council to advance the opening of all clusters before the end of the year. The same announcement also reported that the Ukrainian government has set a goal of concluding accession negotiations by the end of 2028, and that the European Commission believes this requires accelerating the pace of reform, particularly in the fundamentals area and especially rule-of-law reform.

It was not opened within 2025. On 12 June 2026, European Commission President von der Leyen and European Council President Costa announced in a joint statement that all member states had agreed to open the first cluster with Ukraine and Moldova. Three days later, on 15 June, the Fundamentals cluster was opened at an intergovernmental conference.

The EU’s common position presented at that time (a document dated 12 June 2026) lays out both an assessment of Ukraine’s current state and the standards still to be met. On democratic institutions, for example, it calls for continuing to entrench democracy even under the constraints of martial law, and states that while the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) continues to play its role, its oversight of the executive is currently limited. The legal basis for not holding elections under martial law is covered in what Ukraine’s President, Verkhovna Rada, and Cabinet of Ministers each decide.

On anti-corruption, it states that the jurisdiction of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) needs to be expanded to cover all high-risk public offices, including senior officials in the Office of the President and heads of oblast administrations, and includes this, together with allowing the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) to open criminal proceedings against members of parliament without the Prosecutor General’s prior approval, among the interim benchmarks.

According to the European Commission, interim benchmarks were set both for the cluster as a whole and specifically for Chapters 23 and 24, which concern the rule of law. Unless these are met, no chapter can move to the stage of being provisionally closed. Benchmarks for provisional closure have been set out for public procurement, statistics, and financial control (Chapters 5, 18 and 32).

Stages that still remain

As confirmed on 23 September 2026, the European Commission’s page on Ukraine lists only the Fundamentals cluster as opened. Opening each of the remaining five clusters requires a unanimous Council decision each time. Once every chapter is closed, an accession treaty is concluded, and every party ratifies it through its own constitutional procedures. The end-of-2028 target for concluding negotiations is one the Ukrainian government has set; it is not a deadline the EU has committed to.

Being a candidate country and being a member state are two different things. Ukraine and the EU already have an Association Agreement (including a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, or DCFTA) that entered into force in September 2017, and on 29 October 2025 a new trade framework revising this DCFTA entered into force (European Commission). These are frameworks separate from accession.

Events from independence to Russia’s invasion are collected in a timeline of Ukraine’s independence and Russia’s invasion, 1991–2026.