Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Kyiv has spent the war pressing Brussels for one date on paper: when it would actually join the European Union.
The European Commission unveiled its annual enlargement verdict on Wednesday, November 4, and for Ukraine the headline number is one that is missing. The bloc’s updated roadmap sets concrete milestones for the next year but does not commit Brussels to any target year for Ukrainian membership itself.
The Commission’s package, adopted the same day in Brussels, identifies seven of 33 negotiating chapters that Ukraine could close in 2027, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Moldova, whose bid has long moved in tandem with Ukraine’s, is pegged for 24 chapters over the same window.
Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said Albania, Moldova and Ukraine “could join the European Union in the coming years if they sustain the reform efforts.”
The Commission describes Moldova’s target of concluding accession talks by early 2028 as “ambitious but achievable,” while Ukraine aims to close negotiations only by the end of that year.
Rule-of-law reforms hold Kyiv back
The reason Ukraine’s section of the roadmap is thinner than Moldova’s is spelled out in the document: Kyiv is told to “urgently and significantly step up the pace of the rule of law reforms,” language reported by Politico and relayed by Meduza.
The Commission flags the judicial track as the brake on faster progress.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea of separating Kyiv’s bid from Chisinau’s.
After Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tofan’s visit to Kyiv on October 26, he told the Kyiv Independent’s cited remarks: “Moldova and Ukraine are certainly stronger when we move forward on this track together.”
Hungary still holds the last two clusters shut
Even the cautious roadmap assumes the full negotiating track will reopen soon, which it has not.
At an ambassadors’ meeting in Brussels on October 27, Hungary again refused to sign off on the screening results for clusters 4 and 5, which cover transport, energy, environment and climate on one side and agriculture, fisheries, regional policy and the budget on the other.
Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s government, sworn in on May 9 after his Tisza Party defeated Viktor Orban’s Fidesz in the April 12 election, had approved clusters 2 and 3 on October 13 but has kept Budapest’s objections on the final two.
The first peace outline drafted by US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff envisioned Ukraine inside the EU by 2027, a timeline European officials have consistently called unrealistic.
The Commission’s new document effectively confirms that view from the Brussels side. The next formal checkpoint is December, when EU leaders are expected to take up the opening of the last two clusters.
