The European Union agreed to start the process of European integration of Ukraine

Late in the evening of March 10, an emergency meeting of the leaders of the EU countries took place in the suburbs of the French capital of Versailles, at which it was decided to begin the process of integrating Ukraine into this community.

Prime Minister of Croatia Andriy Plenkovic, answering a question from journalists after the end of the summit about the possibility of Ukraine's urgent entry into the European Union, said:

“We agreed on a very good document on Ukraine with positive messages that express solidarity and support. They also emphasized Ukraine's desire for a European path as a response to the application for membership. But there is a procedure, it does not happen overnight. There is a treaty, an article, an application, the EU Council sends an application to the European Commission. Nobody joins the EU overnight”.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called this night in Versailles "historical":

“After five hours of heated discussions, EU leaders said yes to Ukrainian European integration. The process has begun. Now it is up to us and the Ukrainians to do it quickly”.

It is worth adding that this was rather a symbolic step, since the integration process itself takes from 5 to 15 years due to many technical and political reasons, including the harmonization of legislation in order to be in line with the already existing block of European law. So far, no country in Europe has gone through this process faster.

But the journalists of the Russian online publication Readovka were skeptical about this news, calling it a propaganda fake:

“For several days now, Ukrainian officials have been actively promoting the topic that their country is about to join the EU. In fact, this is not so - today we are talking only about the possible assignment of the status of a candidate for membership to Ukraine. This is the same divorce as the topic with the association with the European Union, with which the Maidan began in 2013.

The status of a candidate, which Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania have had for many years, does not give anything at all - it is just a political declaration of intent”.

In addition, some EU leaders have already spoken out negatively about the possible assignment of candidate status for Ukraine. Thus, French President Emmanuel Macron said on the eve of the summit that he did not consider it possible to consider the procedure for considering Ukraine's application for joining the European Union in the context of a conflict.

Journalists believe that this step was taken in order to “give Ukrainians another hope for a bright future that will not exist, to force the Armed Forces of Ukraine to fight to the last soldier, in parallel to pump up the country with weapons and get a gesheft from this. Nothing personal, just business".