Scientific and pedagogical staff and higher education students of Educational and Research Institutes No. 1-5, Sumy branch and Kremenchuk Flight College of KhNUIA listened to an open lecture in English on the topic ‘EU Membership:  Challenges for Ukraine’. The lecture was delivered by Laura Huichi SANCHO, Doctor of Law, Professor of Public International Law at the TransJus Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (Institut de Recerca TransJus, Universidad de Barcelona),  The educational event was the third in a series of webinars aimed at supporting academic and educational experience for students and researchers in Ukraine.

The webinar was joined by:

the head of the Department of Management, Social Sciences, Humanities and Fundamental Disciplines Maryna Kiriukhina;

the teacher of the Cyclic Commission of Electronic Communications, Radio Engineering and Avionics Viktor Panchenko;

the specialist of the International Relations and Interuniversity Work Group Svitlana Stelmakh;

the translator of the International Relations and Interuniversity Work Group Yuliia Onyshchenko; and

the Associate Researcher at the Scientific Activity Organisation Department Nataliia Kitsel.

The speaker spoke in detail about the Robert Schumann Declaration, a proposal opens to each of the European Union's countries, which was supported by only six countries in the 1950s.

The second part of the lecture, which analysed the historical background and peculiarities of Ukraine's application for EU membership, aroused the greatest interest among the audience.

The next important stage was the European Commission's Report published in November 2023. It set out recommendations for the implementation of the necessary reforms and analysed Ukraine's progress in the political, economic and administrative spheres. As early as December 2024, the European Commission reaffirmed its support for Ukraine's efforts to implement reforms on its path to EU membership.

The participants actively asked questions about the possible timeframe for Ukraine's accession to the EU, to which the speaker noted the complexity and length of the accession procedure, the need for sustainable economic progress of the applicant state, as well as the general approach to the accession criteria without exceptions to the established rules.