Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 July 2026
69. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the criteria and sequencing that will determine which candidate countries make progress on EU accession during Ireland's EU Council presidency; and if any timeline commitments have been given to Ukraine that have not been given to Western Balkan candidate countries at similar or earlier stages of the accession process. [53242/26]
View answerIreland strongly supports EU enlargement, which is a key priority of our EU Presidency.
Ten countries []currently hold either EU ‘candidate’ (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine) or ‘potential candidate’ status (Kosovo).
EU enlargement is a merit-based process. In order to join the EU, candidate countries must align their national legislation with the entire body of existing EU law. The Treaty on European Union sets out the conditions and principles to which any country wishing to become a member of the European Union (EU) must conform. These criteria (known as the Copenhagen criteria) were established by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993.
Under the current enlargement methodology, EU policy areas are organised into 33 technical negotiating chapters, which are grouped thematically into six clusters.
The progress that candidate countries make in their accession process is monitored by the European Commission, which publishes an annual report on the state of play of each candidacy. In these annual reports, the Commission identifies the main areas of progress achieved and provides recommendations to support further progress.
As Presidency, Ireland is committed to advancing the candidacies of all candidate countries in line with the existing merit-based enlargement methodology once the necessary conditions have been met.
