Ukraine and EU push to start membership talks in June

Has Ukraine been making a lot of progress on the benchmarks the EU normally requires?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Brussels officials are pushing to begin formal negotiations over Ukraine joining the European Union as early as next month, according to people familiar with the matter.

Behind the scenes, diplomats from the EU and from Kyiv are working intensively to try to persuade the Hungarian government to give its approval to opening talks on Ukraine’s accession.

Opening the talks would bring a morale boost to Ukraine, which has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion for more than two years and has long aspired to join the Western bloc.

EU leaders told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last December they wanted Ukraine and Moldova to join their club, potentially bringing its membership to 29 countries.

After EU leaders gave Kyiv a political thumbs-up, the next step in the accession process is to start formal talks via an intergovernmental conference with Ukraine.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán has been the biggest internal obstacle to the EU’s ongoing support for Ukraine over the past two years.

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