BUILDING A STRONGER AND MORE RESILIENT EUROPEAN UNION

The European Commission has just released the 2023 enlargement reports in which it took a close look at the progress made by the candidate countries. The key recommendation of the package is to start accession negotiations with Ukraine, Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina and to grant a candidate status to Georgia. The Commission‘s recommendations are top of the agenda for the upcoming European Council in December. 

The EU Member States largely agree that EU enlargement is necessary, though differences of approach towards the process and its modalities persist. On the other hand, Presidents of the European Commission and the European Council as well as a number of Member States call for the EU to be prepared for the next enlargement by 2030. The future EU enlargement will thus be one of the top priorities for the new EU institutional cycle starting after next year’s EP elections.

Through panel discussions we aim to assess the current state-of-play and outlook for the EU enlargement policy as well as to have a deeper exchange on Ukraine’s path to the EU.

Speakers include: Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, Olena Halushka, board member of the Ukrainian “Anti-corruption Action Center”, Marlene Rosemarie Madsen, Deputy Director of Ukraine Service and Head of the Economic and Sectoral Policies Unit in the Commission’s DG NEAR, Justinas Mickus, Senior Policy Analyst at STRATA, associate researcher at European Council on Foreign Relations, Marta Stachowiak, Director of the External EU Policy Departament at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, Tadeusz Iwański, Head of Department for Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova at the Centre for Eastern Studies think-tank and Ditte Brasso Sørensen, Chief Analyst, Tænketanken Europa