Zelenskyy calls on EU for "common sense" on opening first negotiation clusters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his statements after the EU leaders' security summit on 6 March, has called on EU leaders to find a way to unblock the opening of the first clusters in Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations.

"Currently, the work on the clusters is blocked without any rational reason. We need common sense, we need to unblock the work on clusters, and this can be done at the leadership level," Zelenskyy wrote on X (Twitter).

Zelenskyy said he sees a need to speed up the work of the Ukraine-EU teams in accession negotiations.

In mid-February, it became known that Hungary had blocked the opening of the first negotiation cluster and demanded that the list of requirements for Ukraine be expanded.

During the entire European Commission's visit to Kyiv to mark the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion, the EC announced ambitious plans to open three clusters of negotiations between Ukraine and the EU before the end of the Polish presidency in June 2025.

Read more: Easing martial law, reforms by 2027: what the EU expects of Ukraine on its path to membership