yes, friends, you and i are on the air of the espresso tv channel and we continue our program, we continue it in our traditional meetings on fridays, and i want to say right away that most of our conversation with you will be devoted to this event that we all expected, which took place last night, this is what ukraine has received the status of a candidate for membership of the european union. this is really quite an important event in the development of our country, because it is from yesterday that ukraine has been defined as part of the civilized world as part of a united europe for many years. i talked to you about the fact that it is unlikely to happen quickly, but the war that russia started against ukraine forced the europeans to act much more

quickly than i think they expected from themselves, and in this way, ukraine and the neighboring republic of moldova, which, by the way, suffers from the actual russian occupation for three and a half decades, she received this candidate status, this is a special candidate status, you are wonderful . do you know that this candidate status is connected with the fact that ukraine and the republic of moldova received from the european commission set a number of conditions in the case of ukraine and seven blocks of conditions, only after these conditions are fulfilled by a certain period, it will be possible to start talks on ukraine's accession to the european union negotiations on ukraine's accession to the european union if these conditions are not fulfilled within a certain time, ukraine will be forced to get rid of this status as i am the republic of moldova, i

will say right away that i do not really believe that ukraine will get rid of the status of a candidate member of the european union, so there is no other way out than to limit this we did not have the condition for candidate status. because a large number of member states of the european union asked the european commission an absolutely valid question. how, in principle, can candidate status be granted to member states of the post-soviet space if they do not meet the requirements that were put forward to other countries? candidates, what does the candidate status look like for the member states of the european union in principle. they first fulfill these conditions, which are nominated by the commission, then they receive the candidate status and later on no one can deprive them, however, they first

fulfill this language, and by the way, this procedure was applied yesterday to georgia, which, like ukraine and the republic of moldova, submitted its application to the european union about the european perspective of georgia. in contrast to ukraine and moldova, the status of a candidate, however, she received the conditions and if she fulfills these conditions, she will be given the status of a candidate, it is already a circle, no one will be able to deprive her of it, we have a different situation, although i repeat, i do not really believe that we let's get rid of this candidate status, i don't really believe that we will be a country that for the first time in history maintains candidate status with conditions and will get rid of candidate status because it

did not fulfill these conditions, but it could be different. it could be that ukraine had this candidate status and there were no negotiations happened and it can continue for years absolutely clearly. therefore, we also have to be aware of all these problems that may arise if we do not comply with all of this. let 's look at them in general to clearly specify them. the first thing is to implement the procedure the selection of judges of the constitutional court, including the process of preliminary selection based on the assessment of their integrity and professional

skills in accordance with the recommendations of the venice commission, it is about ensuring that no ukrainian government, both current and future, can make a decision on the appointment of such judges of the constitutional court who will not the interests of the constitution of the state must be protected and the interests of the current government, and that is why the proposed procedure is the impossibility of the influence of the government on the creation of the constitutional court and on what decision will be adopt this constitutional court, we know the situation when the decisions of the constitutional court of ukraine had a significant impact on the situation in the state, called into question the development of democratic processes in our state, the most obvious decision is this decision, which allowed the president of ukraine, viktor yanukovych, to return to the old version in a not only illegal but unnatural way of the constitution of ukraine after his

election as president in 2010 and to introduce a presidential republic instead of a parliamentary presidential republic and start the construction of an authoritarian regime must be done immediately with a card, these judgments helped yanukovych a lot because there was a popular uprising in 2013, which ended in the collapse of the regime in 2014. and another rather important decision of the constitutional court, which is also questioned by many, is this decision in 2019, which allowed for early elections to dissolve the current ukrainian parliament, it also led to severe consequences from the point of view of democratic processes, the results of these consequences we will atone today if we talk about work of state institutions, these two decisions already illustrate the importance of the constitutional court, if its judges were guided

by constitutional norms and not by the opportunistic interests of people who came to power temporarily and are always considered, as it happens in the post-soviet period , both of those who came permanently this is the condition of the constitutional court regarding the constitutional court of the european commission to limit arbitrariness. the second condition is to complete the examination of candidates for the high council of justice and the selection of candidates for the high qualification commission of judges, this is also very important the fact is that we know that in fact the processes of judicial reform stopped several years ago, that this judicial reform was not brought to an end, that there were very serious claims of the public in the media about the integrity of the candidates to the supreme council of justice to the high qualification commission of judges, and it will depend on these bodies how it will be functioning of the judicial system in ukraine, and without a transparent judicial

system, no reforms are possible, no welfare is possible, and no accession to the european union will be possible even in the foreseeable future no one has any prospects for negotiations with a country that does not have a fair trial. turkey has been building a candidate for 23 years. the members of the european union are waiting for negotiations to continue. they don't have them. at the same time, turkish courts very often issue verdicts that the authorities need. and about no european union. such situations are unthinkable, there are two more tasks related to the fight against corruption, the first is the completion of the appointment of the head of the specialized anti-corruption prosecutor's office, this head has already won the competition, but uh, in connection with the well-known processes in the ukrainian government in the fact that there are officials who are not interested in ukraine's continuation

of the anti-corruption course that was the result of the maidan victory in 2013, the implementation of the decision is actually blocked because this person who won the competition for the head of the specialized anti-corruption prosecutor's office does not look like a person capable of cooperating with the union's executive power structures how do these structures like it? once again, people came to power for a certain period of time, and i think they came for life, and in fact the work of state institutions is blocked. for the sake of its cabinet interests, and now the european commission clearly says that it is necessary to complete the decision regarding this candidate who won, this requirement will be fulfilled, believe me, it is also necessary to hold a competition for the position of director of the national anti-corruption bureau so that a new one appears the director who will be honestly

elected again with all the standards, sometimes there will be no questions, there will be no suspicions that such a person can be connected with the office of the president of ukraine with the ukrainian government and performing because the director of the national corruption bureau should be an independent structure, a figure who can at any time bring charges against any official, even at the highest position, and put handcuffs on such people in order to make it impossible for them to engage in criminal activities if they are engaged in such activities or we understand very well that a person dependent on the authorities will always wait for permission, will combine and it will not be a fight against corruption, a fight that will lead to the strengthening of corruption threats in the ukrainian state that in the end will nullify all our efforts and slap all those who dream of the european prospects of ukraine, as well as a rather serious blow to the memory of those of our defenders who are fighting for a democratic, european, sovereign ukraine without corruption, populism and lies, so the

money laundering legislation should be brought into line with international standards and ukraine should adopt a strategic plan for reforming the law enforcement sector in 2014, after the victory of the ukrainian people on the maidan, this reformation began, which subsequently, the populist forces stopped in the interests of the oligarchic clans, now the european commission clearly requires the ukrainian state to return to the maidan of 2013-14, to return to the interests of the ukrainian people, otherwise the status of the candidate may be frozen, the fifth and sixth conditions are related to de oligarchization, kyiv must adopt anti -oligarchic fodder which, as you remember, was adopted by the ukrainian parliament , but at that time there were quite serious suspicions that this law was adopted not so much for the sake of the fight against how many oligarchs are there in certain political interests

that now look like they compromise the ukrainian state in the eyes of the civilized world as a state that protects the private political interests of a certain circle of people by fighting oligarchs, and when the venice commission adopts its conclusion on this anti-oligarchic law, the verkhovna rada of ukraine will change it like this you will be required by a non-commissioned commission, ukraine is also expected to approve a new law on media that would comply with the norms of the european union, this too a very important law for us, for journalists, for the entire civilized world, let me remind you of a blatant example of lawlessness during this wartime period, when officials from the rtr concern disconnected the direct five and espresso tv channels from digital broadcasting. you to sign a petition in support of

our tv channel and in general democratic television broadcasting in the country, which will contribute to the european integration of our country. let me remind you that we are talking about these channels that have always advocated the history of european integration, in contrast to many of our colleagues who did everything possible to prevent it from happening, and there is still no legal explanation as to how this disconnection from digital broadcasting was decided in general, how the channel artificially reduced the audience, why and the so-called the single telethon consisted of representatives of some channels, but others were not allowed to participate. engaged in information broadcasting, and information television channels are disconnected from this single telemarketer, all this is an example of flagrant disrespect for the norms of the european union, if all this is not justified, the candidate status will of course be

selected or frozen, most likely, in order not to embarrass ukraine, we will be formally candidates , in fact, my and the seventh condition is to implement the recommendations of the venice commission that concern national minorities. well, in general, we should adopt a framework law on national minorities, this has been discussed for a long time and i think that it will not be a big problem when the norms of this law will correspond to the interests of the national minorities in ukraine and their harmonious development in the ukrainian state. these are the conditions of the granting of candidate status to ukraine, and in fact, if there was no war now, we would first have to fulfill these conditions i repeat, and only then get the status of a candidate for membership of the european union, but the war has changed the course of action, it is obvious that

now the deadline for fulfilling these conditions is set for 2022 , but if the war in ukraine continues and there are all signs that the war in ukraine can be long and tiring, this term can be extended for a certain period. conditions that, in principle, will make its candidate status full-fledged prevents the possibility of freezing or canceling this status and at the same time ends the period of hostilities on the territory of ukraine or a peace agreement with russia in which

i do not believe that either a pause in military operations will allow ukraine to receive security guarantees from western countries, or that it would be best to become a member of nato and protect itself from further actions by russia, or to share the fate of other nato member countries in the event of a nuclear conflict between nato and russia well, then there will be no spillovers for everyone and then of course we will be able to talk about the catastrophe of civilization, the death of tens of millions of people in this land from nuclear attacks from both warring camps, of course ukrainians can be among these tens of millions, ukrainian cities can be destroyed by nuclear ash, as well as the cities of our neighboring countries, as well as the cities of russia and the united states. it will be the apocalypse. we are not discussing the apocalypse now. this is how it looks, but it is like this. it is

not now. there will be time to talk about how everything will die in some other petrological program. for now, let's talk about reality. so the war has stopped, what is happening, then the path to negotiations with the european union well, let's look at other countries, the candidate countries of the western balkans, serbia is waiting for the start of negotiations until its issue with kosovo is resolved, the negotiations are frozen, north macedonia is waiting for the start of negotiations because they are blocked by the republic of bulgaria, which believes that it is necessary

for macedonia to respond to its claims historically of a linguistic nature, this means that many people do not like the fact that the macedonian language is called macedonian history. there are no such macedonians who try to consider the bulgarian king sabaila also made his king his own, although his capital was in ohrid on the territory of north macedonia, there are many such things that have nothing to do with bilateral relations and for european integration, but the bulgarian says until it all becomes clear, until the macedonians clearly say all this and will not give a guarantee for the development of the bulgarian national machine in macedonia, and the macedonians believe that all these people are macedonians , in my opinion bulgarians, that is, a special moment, we will not allow such negotiations, albania is waiting the beginning of negotiations is not because it has any claims against it, but because negotiations with it should

take place in the package from north macedonia. montenegro believes that it is not ready for victory and hopes that it will be ready for negotiations in 2025 or so. claims for negotiations although there is a candidate for the membership of the european union, it means that we imagine that ukraine approaches the negotiation process, here it will be very important that we do not have any problems with any of the countries of the european union or the very procedure of admission to of the european union ceased to be a consensus procedure and were decided by, let's say, a majority of votes so that no one could block such a procedure for the beginning of the victory. if this is not the case, of course we will have the opportunity to start negotiations

. do we live with national minorities or something else, these states have the full opportunity to block the front right process for years. north macedonia is a candidate for e-e members of the european union. since 2005, she has been a candidate, since 2005 the negotiations have not yet started because 17 years have passed, it is quite serious 17 years. the republic of macedonia is waiting for these negotiations. at first it was against it, greece was against it,

now bulgaria has hope that next week the bulgarian parliament will unblock this story with negotiations with macedonia and albania and they will start, but we repeat macedonia was waiting for the start of negotiations, it fulfilled all the conditions for 17 years and is still waiting. well, let's hope that we can have a faster deadline that will allow us to hold these negotiations faster, let's look at some ideal options. croatia, a neighbor of macedonia, is already a member of the european union

. it became a candidate in 2004. negotiations began at the end of 2005. then there is a process of checking the legislation for the possibility of negotiations. then there is a year of delay because the republic of slovenia, which was already a member of the european union had claims against croatia regarding territorial waters, the conflict was not resolved, but slovenia agreed that it would resolve this conflict with the help of international disputants and will not interfere with the process of negotiations with croatia , the negotiations began in the ninth year. thus, at the

end of the 11th year, they were finished. these were fast negotiations. they took place for two years. so, in 2012, a decision was made to join the croatia has not yet joined the european union. the issue of accession must be approved by all the parliaments of the member states of the european union . ratification must take place. thus, there may be delays at this stage as well, and eventually 1 in july 2013, croatia became a member of the european union from application to accession . 10 years have passed since application to membership

. 9 years have passed . verification of the legislation, three years for negotiations, three years, yes, something, yes, 6 years for negotiations, in fact , and a year for the ratification of agreements, which means that if we optimistically fulfill these conditions in 2023

year, there will be no real fears among our neighboring countries about the start of the negotiation process, and we will start them a year before there will be fears in 2024 , then in the most optimistic version we will finish this negotiation process sometime in 2031-32, the year for ratification in 2030 in 2033 , we will become a member of the european union , that is, after 10 years, we will have something to consider, and in the not optimistic version, in 2038, if we follow the croatian path and do not wait like northern macedonia before starting the process

17 years of negotiations, to put it mildly, such a term is difficult, well, let's try to understand, let's say another option, how is the accession of montenegro progressing, which did not even begin, did not begin negotiations, montenegro received recognition of its european prospects, this is what georgia has now received, we actually skipped it. in 2006, in in 2008, she applied for eu membership, but in 2010, there was a recommendation to grant candidate status, and she received this status in december 2010. negotiations had already

begun in 2012, two years after the beginning of the negotiations, let's see which sectors are being negotiated in general, each sector needs time so that you and i simply understand what we are talking about in sections, what they are talking about, the free movement of goods is now continuing, negotiations about this are required serious reforms, the free movement of labor is continuing throughout europe negotiations need further reforms

freedom of creation and movement of services need further reforms continues with victory free movement of capitals need further reforms public procurement, further reforms are needed, corporate law, further reforms of intellectual property law are needed, significant reforms are needed , what has been said has been continued since the 14th year. they started only in the 20th year, financial services only in the 15th year , they have been conducting for 10 years for 7 years, negotiations are ongoing, they say that serious reforms are needed and the information society and the media need further reforms, this already after that, montenegro threw out all these conditions that require us to fulfill agriculture

and development of rural areas , significant reforms are needed, food safety, veterinary medicine, phytosanitary policy, significant reforms are needed, and fishing, significant reforms are needed , transport policy, further reforms are needed, energy, further tax reforms are needed, taxation, there are no serious problems the only one so far is the chapter from those we read economic monetary policy of further reform statistics and socio-politics are busy, significant reforms are needed in industrial policy and e-e enterprise there are no serious problems and negotiations are continuing trans-european networks further reforms serious reforms are needed in regional policy dishware policy and pro-promotion these are different sections of science and e-e there are no serious problems and here it is one of the sections that have already been closed, everything is education and culture, there are no serious problems and the section is closed,

ecology is completely incompatible with european law , negotiations began only in the 18th year, protection of rights consumers, further reforms are needed, the customs union has no problems, foreign relations, there are no problems, close the section in foreign policy , defense and security policy, there are no serious problems , financial control, serious reforms are needed, budget issues, serious issues, serious reforms , thus, out of 33 of these sectors, only three sectors succeeded close for how much in 10 years, in 10 years, only three sectors have been closed, and now the government of montenegro is woeful, or it does not even go so far as to sew you up