In Lviv, Ukraine officially received a negotiating position from the European Union on three key clusters, which will become the basis for further technical work on EU accession.
This is reported by “European Pravda” from Lviv.
The representative of Denmark, Marie Bjer, the country that currently holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, announced that Kyiv is being provided with a full package of documents necessary for negotiations with the European Commission in three clusters: No. 1 “Fundamentals”, No. 2 “Internal Market” and No. 6 “Foreign Affairs”. She read out and provided Ukraine with the Draft Common Position (DCP), a document that contains a list of what Ukraine must do to close the relevant chapters.
Previously, such documents were issued to candidate countries only after the official opening of negotiations, and the EU had a strict ban on transmitting them in advance. Thanks to the Danish initiative, this taboo was lifted, and Ukraine became the first country to receive a DCP in the “frontloading” format.
There is also an informal agreement that Cyprus, the next presidency, will hand over negotiating positions on the remaining three clusters to Ukraine at the beginning of the year.
The path chosen by the European Union actually allows Ukraine to technically complete the negotiations even before Hungary’s veto is overcome, provided that all the requirements set out in the DCP are met.
As previously reported, the European Union launched a new technical format for accession negotiations with Ukraine in Lviv, which allows it to move forward even despite the Hungarian veto.
