European Commission: Ukraine lags behind Moldova on path to EU due to corruption

The European Commission has officially stated that Ukraine is lagging behind Moldova on the path to European Union accession due to corruption.

This is stated in a new annual enlargement report, according to the Financial Times.

The document notes that Chisinau is on track to complete EU accession negotiations by the beginning of 2028. Kyiv, according to the report, will need another year and “an acceleration of the pace of reforms” to complete this process.

In particular, Ukraine needs to “demonstrate significant progress” in the fight against corruption.

Brussels has created a “special working group” to help Ukraine “urgently and substantially accelerate the pace of reforms in the area of the rule of law.”

The European Commission expects that Moldova will be able to close 25 negotiating chapters in 2027, while Ukraine — only seven.

Both countries applied for EU membership in 2022 and have since advanced in parallel. In September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that separating the countries on the path to the EU would be “morally wrong.”

We wrote in a separate article about the EU’s requirements for Ukraine in more detail, and whether they include the Kaczynski–Kos bills, whose adoption is demanded by grant activists and which strip the president of control over the security forces.