Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Four years into the war, Kyiv’s road to Brussels is about to get a concrete milestone it has never had before.
The European Commission will release its annual enlargement package on Wednesday, November 4, and for the first time the document is expected to carry an indicative end date for Ukraine’s accession talks. The report lands alongside parallel roadmaps for Moldova, Montenegro and Albania.
European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos will present the package in Brussels, covering ten candidate and potential candidate countries. Of the four frontrunners, Ukraine is expected to receive the latest projected date, reflecting the volume of reform work still outstanding.
Both Kyiv and Chisinau have set a shared ambition of being ready for membership by 2030, a timeline the Commission has publicly endorsed.
Moldova has set the pace this year
Ukraine has opened four of the six negotiating clusters, with Clusters 2 and 3 covering the Internal Market and Competitiveness unlocked on October 13. Twenty-four of the 33 individual chapters are now open.
Moldova has moved through the same clusters faster and with fewer legislative delays, straining the long-held “package approach” that keeps the two countries’ bids formally linked. Decoupling is on the table once interim benchmarks are met.
Ukraine’s parliament has slowed the pace in 2026 by blocking or delaying several reform bills, according to the Kyiv Independent’s preview of the enlargement report.
Rule of law gap drives a new joint task force
To close the gap, Kyiv and Brussels have set up a joint task force on justice and anti-corruption reforms. “We agreed to launch a joint Task Force to accelerate progress on the interim benchmarks and advance essential rule of law and anti-corruption reforms,” Kos said after her call with Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi in mid-October, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
The group is meeting twice a week with the aim of producing results over the next four months, rather than the standard multi-year reform cycle.
Press freedom is a separate open issue. The Commission’s draft flags lawsuits, court rulings and social-media campaigns against journalists investigating corruption.
The prosecutor general row
The sharpest internal dispute is over how Ukraine picks its chief prosecutor. The EU wants a merit-based procedure with international expert input, instead of today’s presidential appointment confirmed by parliament.
Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Vsevolod Chentsov, in office since July, has pushed back. He told Yevropeiska Pravda, in comments relayed by the Kyiv Independent, that he sees “neither the need nor the possibility of holding an open competition” for the post, arguing an open contest would clash with the constitution.
Anastasia Radina, who chairs parliament’s anti-corruption committee, submitted a competing bill in June that would run the selection through a transparent contest including international vetters. She has rejected arguments that the approach is unconstitutional, telling the Kyiv Independent “there may be different interpretations of the benchmark.”
Over 8 billion euros ($8.9 billion) in reform-linked funding has already been unlocked by the measures Ukraine has passed, according to the Kyiv Independent. Wednesday’s roadmap will show how much more is tied to the reforms still ahead.
