EU ministers to discuss enlargement and situation in Ukraine with Kyiv's EU integration official

EU European affairs ministers will discuss the prospects for EU enlargement and the current situation in Ukraine with Vsevolod Chentsov, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, at an informal summit in Ireland on Friday 4 September.

Source: Thomas Byrne, Ireland's Minister of State for European Affairs, ahead of the meeting, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Chentsov will brief his European counterparts on the situation in Ukraine at the informal summit in Ireland.

"Look, what Russia is doing is absolutely outrageous, and you hear that straight from the horse's mouth from Minister Chentsov, who is Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and is here at the meeting this morning. And my sympathy, my empathy goes right out to him and to all of the Ukrainian people, what they're suffering," Byrne said.

He said that EU European affairs ministers had already spoken with their counterparts from EU candidate countries during a joint dinner on 3 September.

"We'll have a discussion among the Member States as well about safeguards on the accession process, and then Commissioner McGrath will be here as well to talk about safety and democracy," the Irish minister said.

He stressed that Ireland, as the country holding the EU Council presidency, is advancing the enlargement process and doing its job.

"We are charged with taking forward the process. We've done that and continue to do it with Montenegro. We've done that, continue to do it with Albania, and we're working hard on Ukraine and Moldova as well to open the remaining negotiating chapters for them," Byrne said.

Background:

• On 1 September, Hungary once again refused to approve the results of the screening of Clusters 2 and 3 for Ukraine, demanding that Ukraine take certain legislative steps concerning the Hungarian national minority.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar publicly linked Hungary's position on the opening of negotiating clusters for Ukraine to the issue of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine on 3 September.
• Ukraine's sixth negotiating cluster, External Relations, was opened in Brussels on 14 July.

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