{"id":1395705,"date":"2026-05-21T10:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T07:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/merz-proposed-granting-ukraine-the-status-of-associate-member-of-the-eu\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T10:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T07:28:12","slug":"merz-proposed-granting-ukraine-the-status-of-associate-member-of-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/merz-proposed-granting-ukraine-the-status-of-associate-member-of-the-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"Merz proposed granting Ukraine the status of &#8220;associate member&#8221; of the EU"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"110\" data-end=\"328\"><strong>German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposed granting Ukraine the new status of &#8220;associate member&#8221; of the European Union as a temporary stage towards full membership.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"110\" data-end=\"328\"> Spiegel reports this, citing its own sources.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"330\" data-end=\"518\"> According to the publication, Merz outlined his idea in a letter to European leaders. He emphasized that EU enlargement is a &#8220;geopolitical necessity,&#8221; but the accession process itself remains lengthy.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"520\" data-end=\"624\"> &#8220;We need a new impetus for Ukraine, the Western Balkans, and Moldova,&#8221; the Chancellor noted.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"626\" data-end=\"767\"> Merz stressed that Ukraine is in a special situation due to the war, but has already made significant progress towards EU membership.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"769\" data-end=\"921\"> The proposed &#8220;associate member&#8221; status provides Ukraine with broader rights and obligations than standard candidate status. Specifically, this includes: <\/p>\n<ul data-start=\"922\" data-end=\"1217\"><\/p>\n<li data-section-id=\"1v87n5i\" data-start=\"922\" data-end=\"989\"> participation and voting rights in meetings of the EU Council and the European Council;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li data-section-id=\"11wierq\" data-start=\"990\" data-end=\"1055\"> participation without the right to vote in the work of the European Commission and the European Parliament;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li data-section-id=\"eqvfr9\" data-start=\"1056\" data-end=\"1093\"> gradual integration into the EU budget;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li data-section-id=\"1j4nifu\" data-start=\"1094\" data-end=\"1173\"> extension in Ukraine of Article 42.7 of the EU Treaty on Mutual Assistance and Defence;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li data-section-id=\"hfbvj9\" data-start=\"1174\" data-end=\"1217\"> special format of participation in the work of the Court of Justice of the EU.<\/li>\n<p><\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1219\" data-end=\"1371\"> According to Merz&#8217;s plan, such a mechanism could also support the negotiation process on Ukraine initiated by the United States, as it includes elements of security guarantees.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1373\" data-end=\"1519\"> At the same time, the Chancellor proposes to provide for the possibility of limiting these rights in the event of a rollback of reforms or Ukraine\u2019s deviation from the fundamental values of the EU.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1521\" data-end=\"1642\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"> According to Spiegel, Merz proposes separate models for accelerated integration into the European Union for Moldova and the Western Balkan countries.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1521\" data-end=\"1642\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"> Earlier, <a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/yevrokomisarka-zaklykala-pryskoryty-perehovory-pro-vstup-ukrainy-do-yes\/\">European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos<\/a> called on EU countries to officially open all negotiating clusters on Ukraine and Moldova&#8217;s accession to the EU by summer.<\/p>\n<div class=\"full-post__content font-rules\">\n<p> Also follow <strong>&#8220;Pryamy&#8221;<\/strong> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/prm_ua\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">X<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/+rtV4dxYu2_cyNjVi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Telegram<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposed granting Ukraine the new status of &#8220;associate member&#8221; of the European Union as a temporary stage towards full membership. Spiegel reports this, citing its own sources. According to the publication, Merz outlined his idea in a letter to European leaders. He emphasized that EU enlargement is a &#8220;geopolitical necessity,&#8221; but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1312374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76874,76875,76894],"class_list":["post-1395705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-war","category-other-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1395705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1312374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1395705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1395705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}