Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission, has highlighted the progress of Ukraine and Moldova in meeting the EU membership criteria.

Noting Ukraine's progress in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Jourová couldn’t assess whether this progress was enough to move to the next stage.

"My portfolio includes justice. I managed the fight against organised crime, money laundering, fraud, corruption, and the media sector. So, I am watching with great interest how the European Commission will assess the progress because there is indeed progress," she said.

"I really can't tell you at this point whether the progress will be sufficient to have the countries moved to the next stage," the official added.

Asked what she would say during the College of European Commissioners meeting, where countries' progress will be assessed, Jourová responded that she would voice what "I need to", adding that "either this thing is there or it’s not".

"The EU has no choice but to be brave and develop and to grow geographically, politically, to grow because of the need to be stronger, more resilient. So I believe we need to grow towards Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, right. However, at the same time, we need to insist that these three countries fulfil, once again, the commitments that are part of the negotiations," the Vice President of the European Commission explained.

Assessing the chances of Ukraine and Moldova starting EU accession talks this year and Georgia gaining candidate status, Jourová noted that evaluating the progress of reforms is rather an extensive task.

"There is one challenging thing about these reform efforts. We always want the laws to work and the institutions to function, but we expect the decisions to be stable so that they work in practice. We can't know what will happen in the future. But the Commission focuses on what is on paper," she summarised.

Earlier, Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Head of the Ukrainian President's Office, said the talks on Ukraine's accession to the European Union would begin in the first half of 2024, when Belgium holds the EU Council presidency.

Notably, Politico reported on a similar scenario last week. Its sources stated that the EU leaders would decide to commence talks on Ukraine's accession by the end of 2023, but de facto, they would start a little later.

Ukraine has not yet completed the seven criteria and is persistently failing to implement one of the EU recommendations that several states consider crucial – legislation on politically exposed persons, or PEPs.

Read also: Mission not accomplished: start of EU accession negotiations still at risk