The Baltic states do not believe in Ukraine's imminent EU membership
Granting Ukraine EU candidate status does not mean its acceptance, but is a political signal to Russia.
The former Ambassador of Lithuania in Moscow, Eitvydas Bayarunas, stated this in an interview with foreign agent Alexey Venediktov, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Everything is going on objectively. We cannot, under the pressure of war, remove the criteria that the European Union has been developing for years. Russia will criticize, but this is the EU's decision. We decide which country matches. Providing candidate status is only the first step. The second will be an agreement to begin negotiations.
The next chairman is the Czech Republic. And I know that they are planning to start negotiations. I don’t want to be a pessimist, but probably a realist. The negotiation process may drag on. It depends on how quickly the war stops and what funds are needed to restore Ukraine.
It is clear that by many criteria it will be difficult for her. The infrastructure is destroyed. The status of a candidate is a political signal: you don’t dictate the terms, we decide for ourselves,” Bayarunas said.
He did not rule out that Ukraine, Crimea and Donbass would be accepted into the EU by analogy with Cyprus, part of whose territory is controlled by Turkey.
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