What are Ukraine's chances of overtaking Moldova on the road to EU?
This week has been truly historic for Ukraine and Moldova regarding their European future. On Monday in Luxembourg, the European Union officially opened accession negotiations with both countries under the first, Fundamentals cluster.
As European Pravda has reported, another breakthrough in the accession process may be expected soon. According to preliminary agreements, on 14 July, the EU plans to open the remaining five negotiation clusters in Brussels.
While Kyiv has so far fought to keep Ukraine and Moldova tightly linked on their path to EU membership, after the opening of all clusters the process will increasingly become one of competition. In other words, a "decoupling" could occur even without any formal EU decision to separate the two tracks.
Read more about the current state of affairs for Ukraine and Moldova at the start of accession negotiations in the article by Sergiy Sydorenko, European Pravda's editor: Catching up with Moldova? The EU report shows where Ukraine lags behind its neighbour in accession talks.
The speed of reforms and the timing of accession are now becoming directly competitive issues for Ukraine and Moldova. The two countries may either reach the finish line together or separately.
Whichever country demonstrates a stronger pace of reforms will have a better chance of moving ahead and perhaps joining the EU as part of the leading group of candidates. Conversely, slowing down reforms or merely imitating them would likely result in falling behind the neighbouring state.
This is the main change that will occur once all clusters are opened, which may happen on 14 July.
On Monday, together with the decision to open negotiations, Ukraine received the EU member states’ "common position" regarding its progress in aligning with EU law and accession requirements across all areas covered by the first negotiation cluster.
The most valuable part of the document is the list of benchmarks, the criteria by which Ukraine’s readiness for EU membership will be assessed. Earlier this year, European Pravda had published a list of benchmarks obtained from its own sources.
With the opening of the first cluster, this list has now become official and will not be changed during the negotiations. The benchmarks remained unchanged except for one addition: at Hungary’s request, the document now includes a reference to the government’s action plan concerning minorities.
Moldova received its own benchmarks and EU common position as well.
The documents for Moldova and Ukraine contain both similar, sometimes even identical, sections and areas where the criteria established for Ukraine are substantially more extensive.
This does not indicate that the EU is imposing stricter standards on Ukraine.
The reason is that in some areas Moldova is simply performing better. Not dramatically better, the difference amounts to roughly 10 percent in volume, but it is noticeable. Therefore, Ukraine faces a larger number of tasks that must be completed to achieve compliance with EU requirements in certain sectors.
Because of previous attempts to imitate compliance with EU requirements, the EU has imposed more detailed conditions on Ukraine regarding the rule of law.
For example, Ukraine must reform procedures for selecting judges to the Supreme Court, restore the participation of independent experts nominated by international partners in the selection of members of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, and accelerate the vetting of sitting judges and the certification of prosecutors.
At the same time, Ukraine’s anti-corruption enforcement system receives a significantly better assessment from the EU than Moldova’s.
However, when it comes to preventing corruption, the situation is the opposite.
EU member states have also established different criteria for evaluating Ukraine and Moldova in the field of human rights.
In one area, national minority rights, there is even a precedent where Ukraine’s situation is arguably better, yet stricter requirements are imposed on Ukraine rather than on Moldova, due to demands from the Hungarian government.
Nevertheless, despite certain differences in their respective situations, Ukraine and Moldova are currently at roughly the same level of alignment with EU legislation and accession requirements.
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- June, 22
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23 of June 2026
