EU to launch Ukraine, Moldova membership talks next week

EU countries have formally approved launching accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova next week, a landmark event for the two countries at the start of their long path towards joining the bloc.

European Union ministers will start negotiations first with Ukraine and then with Moldova in Luxembourg on Tuesday afternoon, officials said on Friday.

Ukraine - followed by its neighbour Moldova - lodged its application to join the 27-nation EU in the wake of Russia's 2022 war.

Starting the negotiations will still only put the two ex-Soviet states at the beginning of what is likely to be a years-long process of reforms before they can finally become members.

EU leaders took the key step in December of agreeing to open talks on war-torn Ukraine - and Moldova - joining the club.

But to actually begin the negotiations the bloc's members still had to sign off on a formal framework for the process.

The EU's executive told member states this month that Ukraine and Moldova had met all the criteria needed to launch the talks.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu, on the other hand, announced on Friday that she had signed a decree to start negotiations on the republic's accession to the European Union.

"Today I signed a decree on the start of negotiations on Moldova's accession to the European Union. Moldova has implemented all the recommendations of the European Commission," Sandu wrote on Facebook following a meeting of the National Commission for European Integration.

Sandu noted that the negotiations on the accession will start on June 25 at the first Moldova-EU intergovernmental conference, two years after Chisinau received candidate status.

Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Kristina Gerasimov has been appointed chief negotiator from Moldova, she said.

Sandu said she expects Moldova to become an EU member state by 2030.