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The foreign ministers of the European Union expressed themselves this Monday in favor of Ukraine’s candidacy for the bloc, in the first meeting of Twenty-seven after Kyiv received the favorable opinion of the European Commission for its European integration and requested the status of candidate.

After Brussels advocated in its formal opinion to consider Ukraine as a candidate, assuming that Kyiv will face important reforms in the field of the judiciary or the fight against corruption, European foreign ministers have shown a united front in support of Ukraine.

“It is a political, strategic and moral imperative,” said the new French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, about the option of granting the status of a candidate, whose last word will be with the European leaders at the summit on the 23rd and 24th of June.

In this sense, France has asked for a “clear and positive” message to Kyiv’s request, stating that the EU must send a signal of support to the Ukrainian people and send a message to Russia.

“It is a historic moment in which we all have to reflect on what we will be in the coming years if we take the wrong direction in this situation,” warned the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, insisting that despite the fact that the path to EU is “complicated and hard”, Europe “always grows in difficult times”.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands, another Member State traditionally reluctant with Enlargement, has valued the “balanced” proposal of the European Commission and has advanced Dutch support. “It is a good proposal that points out the tremendous importance of unity in this geopolitical context,” said the head of Foreign Affairs, Wopke Hoekstra.

For its part, the Czech Republic has asked European partners for “political will” to support Ukraine’s candidate status, stating that otherwise the Ukrainian people who “die for European values” would feel “abandoned” in the midst of war against Russia.

“It is a war that Vladimir Putin fights with imperial ideas and Ukraine does not want to be part of this. It is a special situation and we must reflect it, it is a political decision,” Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky stressed.

His Latvian counterpart, Edgar Rinkevics, has highlighted the country’s commitment to European values ​​​​and that it has “sufficient” progress in democratic reforms to be considered a candidate country. “I hope there is unanimous support”, he has said upon his arrival at the meeting in Luxembourg.

In turn, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, has underlined the “great step forward” that the positive opinion of Brussels represents for Ukraine’s accession, as well as for the aspirations of Moldova and Georgia. “I can’t anticipate anything but I haven’t heard anyone oppose it,” Borrell said of the Twenty-seven’s support.