Polish foreign minister: Ukraine not ready for EU membership in 2027 due to lack of key reforms

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski has said that Ukraine's accession to the European Union requires a realistic assessment of readiness both in Kyiv and within the union itself, expressing doubts about the feasibility of setting 2027 as a target date for membership.

Source: Sikorski after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, as reported by Polskie Radio

Quote: "I always appreciate creative thinking. Ukraine's accession itself will be a major challenge both for Ukraine and for the European Union, as it is a large country but not a very wealthy one. Meanwhile, we should remember that Ukraine has not yet fully implemented the Association Agreement. So creative thinking is one thing, but political decisions are another."

Details: The remarks refer to discussions about Kyiv's efforts to fix 2027 as the date of EU accession in a future peace agreement. The idea of so-called "reverse accession" for Ukraine is supported by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

This concept would mean that Ukraine first becomes a full EU member and only afterwards, as reforms are implemented, joins specific cooperation programmes, including the Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy. Sikorski stressed that such an approach presents a serious procedural challenge.

Background:

• Ukraine applied for EU membership in February 2022, shortly after the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
• In June 2024, the European Union officially opened accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova.
• In December 2025, Ukraine and the EU launched substantive accession talks, bypassing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and have covered three of the six negotiation clusters so far: Fundamentals, Internal Market and External Relations.
• On 23 February, European Pravda posted details of documents listing the reforms required for accession. These requirements will be used to assess Ukraine's readiness for membership.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with the Financial Times called on the EU to officially fix 2027 as the date of Ukraine's accession to the EU.

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