EU Membership
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-02
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Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

I acknowledge the colleagues who attended the opening ceremony yesterday. I hope President Zelenskyy's presence has shown not just our own citizens but the rest of Europe and the world that we fully support Ukraine and intend, through our Presidency, to do everything we can to continue that support and to put pressure on Russia. That includes supporting Ukraine on its accession path. I believe, as I think we all believe, that it is the only trajectory for Ukraine. The country is already defending every single one of us in its defence of itself. In so many ways, Ukraine is already part of our European community. It is about making sure we do everything we can to support the process for enlargement. We had that discussion at our bilateral meeting with President Zelenskyy. We discussed a number of things but particularly Ukraine's accession and how we can work towards that over the next six months.
Enlargement is a priority for us during our Presidency. We all know the benefits Ireland has experienced from membership. It is important that we support through the accession process other countries that want to join the European community and the EU. Moldova and Ukraine are two of the current candidate countries. They both applied for membership in 2022 and opened accession negotiations in 2024. Last year's European Commission annual enlargement report indicated that Moldova made the most one-year progress of all candidates during the reporting period. The same report described Ukraine's progress as remarkable. The Commission has confirmed that both countries are technically ready to open all the negotiating clusters.
It was very welcome that the first clusters opened for both Ukraine and Moldova two weeks ago. I acknowledge our colleagues in Cyprus and the work they have done to ensure that progress was made. From my visit to Ukraine earlier this year and from meeting representatives of Moldova, I am conscious of the very serious efforts both countries have been making to meet the challenge of aligning their laws with the EU acquis under unprecedented circumstances.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-02/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:14+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-02