EU leaders begin debate on enlargement, including recommendation to negotiate Ukraine's membership
Kyiv • UNN
EU leaders are negotiating the potential membership of Ukraine and Moldova in the EU, as well as Georgia's candidate status, and the overall agreed budget is to be finalized by senior advisors amid uncertainty over Hungary's support.
EU leaders have begun discussing recommendations for enlargement and membership talks for Ukraine and Moldova, as well as candidate status for Georgia, The Guardian reports, according to UNN.
Details
Sources say the leaders have already moved on to discussing enlargement, reaching "broad agreement" among all 27 countries on a budget known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
Insiders say the "tweaking" of the budget has now been handed over to "sherpas," senior advisers who will scrutinize the details to reach an agreement.
"The final question of whether (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor Orban will support the budget element of a 50 billion euro fund for Ukraine will not be resolved until the decision on enlargement is made, as the two are inextricably linked," the newspaper writes.
The Sherpas are said to be looking to see if they can achieve further reductions.
"The Sherpas need to agree on everything and communicate it to their managers," the insider said.
To recap,
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban showed no signs of being ready to compromise on Ukraine's EU accession when he arrived at the summit on Thursday morning.
