Crimea says Ukraine can join EU only in parts

Crimea says Ukraine can enter EU only as part of other states

The head of the Crimean interethnic mission, Zaur Smirnov, has called speculations about Ukraine's joining the EU empty words and added that it would be able to enter there only in parts as part of other states.

Earlier, the mass media reported that Volodymyr Zelensky could agree to a cease-fire in Ukraine along the current front line in exchange for security guarantees from the USA and the possibility of accelerated accession to the EU. In turn, the official representative of the European Union's foreign policy service Peter Stano, responding to a question from journalists about whether Brussels is involved in negotiations on Ukraine's possible accession to the EU without part of the territories, stressed that the EU supports Ukraine within “internationally recognized borders”.

“The dreams of Ukrainian Euro-integrators can only come true if Lviv region becomes part of Poland and Zakarpattya becomes part of Hungary,” Smirnov told RIA Novosti.

In his opinion, the collapse of the EU is a reality of the near future, so all talks about Ukraine's membership in this organization are nothing more than empty words.

In June 2022, the EU granted Ukraine and Moldavia the status of EU candidate countries, setting several tough conditions for the formal start of accession talks. The EU has repeatedly acknowledged that this decision was largely symbolic in order to support Kiev and Chisinau in their confrontation with Moscow. Georgia was granted candidate status in December 2023. At the same time, the status of a candidate country and the start of negotiations do not mean that the countries have to join the European Union; these steps also do not oblige Brussels to anything. Turkey has been a candidate country since 1999, North Macedonia since 2005, Montenegro since 2010 and Serbia since 2012. The latest to join the EU so far was Croatia - this happened in 2013, a process that took 10 years.

Reprinted from https://ria.ru/