BRUSSELS, June 17. /TASS/: The European Commission recommended that an EU candidate status be given to Ukraine and Moldova and be put off for Georgia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement on Friday.
"The Commission recommends to the Council: First, that Ukraine is given a European perspective. Second, that Ukraine is given candidate status," she said.
The commission also recommended "that Council grants Moldova the European perspective and candidate status," von der Leyen said. On Georgia, the commission recommend to Council "to grant the European perspective, and to come back and assess how Georgia meets a number of conditions before granting it candidate status," she said.
Von der Leyen called on Tbilisi to bring onboard civil society, work on political and judicial reforms and fight corruption and organized crime.
These recommendations will be discussed by leaders of the bloc during a summit on June 23-24. The candidate status will be granted to these countries if all of the bloc’s 27 nations unanimously support that.
Conditions
If the summit approves the candidate status for Ukraine and Moldova, the commission will put their applications on hold until the countries make progress on certain reforms. Afterward, the countries will be able to start accession talks that could take years or even decades, if past experience is anything to go by.
Von der Leyen said Ukraine needs to carry out certain reforms including to strengthen its judicial system, fight corruption and to perform an "deoligarchization."
Moldova has to raise the quality of its public administration and achieve significant success in fighting corruption, she said.
Past experience
There’s no clearly defined timeframe for joining the EU after obtaining a candidate status. Finland went along that path in record short time: three years. Turkey got its candidate status 23 years ago and the outlook for its membership is still dim.
