On September 12, Kyiv will host a public discussion “Ukraine’s Accession to the EU: Ukrainian and European Experts and Politicians on the Start of Real Negotiations”.
The year 2023 could be a historic year for Ukraine’s progress towards the European Union.
With elections to the European Parliament and new appointments to the European Commission in 2024, key EU decision makers will be working hard to end this term on an optimistic note for Ukraine and the EU, ensuring another historic wave of enlargement in the future.
This means that there are high chances that negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in the EU will be opened at the end of this year. In particular, a special EU summit is scheduled for December.
As representatives of Ukrainian civil society, we are convinced that Ukrainian and European experts and politicians need to develop a dialogue on what a realistic path to Ukraine’s accession to the EU would look like.
That is why we are organizing this public discussion, because right now, in the context of a large-scale war with Russia, we need to talk honestly and openly about the challenges that Ukraine will face on its way to full membership in the European community, as well as how to overcome them.
Watch the online broadcast!
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⏱ September 12, 2023 🕙 10:00 — 14:45 (UTC+3) 📍 Kyiv, InterContinental Hotel 🔊 Languages of the event: Ukrainian and English ✅ Online streaming
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Program of the event
| 10:00 — 10:30 | WELCOMING COFFEE |
| 10:30 — 10:55 | WELCOME SPEECH
Liubov Akulenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Centre for European Policy Dr. Jan Philipp Wölbern, Head of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Office in Ukraine Vadym Galaychuk, People’s Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, First Deputy Chairman of the VRU Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union Oleksandr Ilkov, Director General at Government Office for Coordination on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration |
| 10:55 — 12:05 | INDEPENDENT EXPERT VISION
David Stulik, Senior Analyst, European Values Centre for Security Policy (online participation) Laure Delcour, Associate Professor, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, and Visiting Professor, College of Europe (online participation) Florian Bieber, Professor for Southeast European History and Politics University of Graz, Coordinator, Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG) Borja Lasheras, Senior Fellow at Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEРА) Dmytro Naumenko, senior analyst of UCEP |
| 12:05 — 12:20 | QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS |
| 12:20 — 12:50 | COFFEE BREAK |
| 12:50 — 14:00 | THE OFFICIAL POSITION OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES – WHAT CAN THEY DO FOR UKRAINE’S ACCESSION TO THE EU
Ricardo Lopez-Aranda Jagu, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Spain to Ukraine Gaël Veyssière, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Ukraine Anna-Maria Steiner, the acting Ambassador, Minister Counsellor of the Republic of Austria to Ukraine Ondřej Benesik, Chair of the Committee on European Affairs, Chamber of Deputies (Czech Republic) (online participation) Jean-François Rapin, Chair of the European Affairs Committee, Senate (France) (online participation) Maria Mezentseva, People’s Deputy of Ukraine, Deputy Chair of the Committee, Chair of the Subcommittee on Approximation of Ukrainian Legislation to EU Legislation of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Integration of Ukraine with the European Union |
| 14:00 — 14:15 | QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS |
| 14:15 — 14:45 | LUNCH |
The public discussion was organized by the Ukrainian Center for European Policy in cooperation with the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union and with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Ukraine.