{"id":456821,"date":"2026-06-16T09:43:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T07:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/06\/16\/inizia-il-processo-di-adesione-di-ucraina-e-moldova-aperti-i-primi-capitoli-negoziali\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T11:08:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T09:08:51","slug":"the-accession-process-for-ukraine-and-moldova-begins-first-negotiation-chapters-opened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/06\/16\/the-accession-process-for-ukraine-and-moldova-begins-first-negotiation-chapters-opened\/","title":{"rendered":"The accession process for Ukraine and Moldova begins, first negotiation chapters opened"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 15 June 2026 is already a historic date: the EU has opened the first chapters of negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova,<\/strong> marking the official start of Kyiv\u2019s accession process to the European Union. The Member States have overcome doubts, divisions, and vetoes, enabling them to achieve the unanimity required to proceed with the launch of a process that had been promised but was by no means a foregone conclusion. <\/p>\n

The accession process stipulates that, once a country has applied for and been granted “candidate” status, it must begin political negotiations on a total of 32 chapters, grouped into categories (clusters). It is customary to begin by discussing the so-called “fundamentals”, a cluster comprising Judiciary and fundamental rights (Chapter 23), Justice, Freedom and Security (Chapter 24), Public Procurement (Chapter 5), Statistics (Chapter 18) and Financial Control (Chapter 32). For Ukraine and Moldova, it is time to discuss these first five chapters. This marks the start of a process that first involves opening all negotiation chapters, then closing them. Once all negotiation chapters have been closed, the country can then become a Member State of the EU by right.<\/p>\n

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Rejoices Ma<\/strong>rilena Raouna<\/strong>, Deputy Minister for European Affairs of Cyprus, a country with the <\/span><\/span><\/span>rotating presidency of the Council of the EU<\/b><\/a>: “Today marks a historic moment for the Cypriot Presidency and sends a clear message: the future of Ukraine and its citizens is firmly anchored in the European Union<\/strong>.” Enlargement, she emphasises, “is not only a strategic opportunity for Ukraine, but also a strategic investment in a stronger, safer, and more united Europe.” This is the key political step in a process aimed at removing Ukraine and Moldova from Russian influence, as part of Europe\u2019s ongoing advance into the former Soviet Union’s territories.<\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

Above all, the EU is showing that it is honouring its commitments. The number of Member States, including Italy, calling for at least an initial round of negotiations on Ukraine to be opened in June had grown<\/a>, and the EU is managing to do so without even having to call on its leaders (the meeting is scheduled for this Thursday, 18 June). The 27 had debated whether to open all the negotiation chapters, but in the end, they decided to proceed. A message, and above all, a demonstration of political reliability.<\/p>\n

Ukraine submitted its application for EU membership on 28 February 2022, immediately following Russia\u2019s military aggression. Moldova submitted its application on 3 March 2022. On 17 June 2022, the European Commission issued its opinion on the applications, and on 23 June 2022, candidate status was granted by unanimous agreement among the leaders of all 27 EU Member States. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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“We have been waiting for this moment for years<\/strong>“, emphasises the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister responsible for Euro-Atlantic Integration, Taras Kachka<\/strong>, who first and foremost congratulates his country on “the progress made” in such a short space of time. The opening of the first negotiation chapters “shows that anything is possible.”<\/div>\n
The decision to open the first cluster “shows that the choice made two years ago via referendum<\/a> is becoming a reality,” emphasises Moldovan Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu<\/strong>, who is delighted with a result that has been a long time coming: “Moldova has been ready to open this cluster for a year now.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marilena Raouna, Deputy Minister for European Affairs of Cyprus, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU: “The future of Ukraine and its citizens is firmly anchored in the European Union”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":456815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[27094,26024,27334,33394,30781],"class_list":["post-456821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-adesione-en","tag-enlargement","tag-ue","tag-ukraine-in-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":456822,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456821\/revisions\/456822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}