Zelensky may take part in the EU leaders’ summit on 15 October if Kyiv unblocks the next membership step

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will take part in the summit of the EU’s 27 national leaders on 15 October if Kyiv unblocks the next step of the European Union membership process, a Ukrainian official confirmed to The Kyiv Independent.

Ukraine’s parliament is expected on 12 October to approve the law strengthening the rights of the Hungarian-speaking minority — the step Hungary has demanded in order to lift its veto on Ukraine’s EU membership progress. If the law is approved and the EU unblocks the next two enlargement “clusters”, Zelensky will take part in the European Council summit, said an official familiar with his agenda, as The Kyiv Independent reports.

Ukraine has so far opened two of the six enlargement clusters — the first two were opened in June and July — but progress stalled because Kyiv had not yet approved the ethnic minorities reform, although it had agreed with Budapest in July.

The EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, said at the 5 October press conference in Brussels: “It is possible that we open the next two clusters … next week”, adding that the member states must speed up the procedure. The steps between the law’s approval and the intergovernmental conference (IGC) — the event that marks the formal opening of an enlargement cluster — are formalities, but they take time; IGCs are usually held on the margins of the General Affairs Council, which meets in Luxembourg on 13 October, so the IGCs could be held on 14 October, one day before the leaders’ summit.

If all goes well, Ukraine would open clusters two and three, which include broad economic reforms, leaving clusters four and five — more sectoral areas, such as agriculture and transport, toward which some countries have reservations. Kos said she hopes all six clusters will be unblocked by the end of the year.

The 15 October summit is expected to discuss the future of EU enlargement — the key proposals are published on 6 October — Ukraine’s war effort and European defence and security more broadly, as well as the negotiations on the EU budget for 2028–2034, which includes a separate line of support for Ukraine of 89 billion euros (100 billion dollars).