| With the European Commission’s enlargement report out, the ball is now in the court of EU leaders to decide how to proceed with the accession process – and their own reform homework. In a historic step, the European Commission recommended on Wednesday the opening of accession talks with Ukraine – notwithstanding Russia’s ongoing war on the country – as well as with Moldova. The Western Balkans got the EU’s Growth Plan for the region, while Bosnia got a carrot dangled in front of them in the form of a muddled phrase about a potential future distant chance for opening accession talks. In total, despite all the shortcomings still listed for the now 10 EU hopefuls, it might have been the most positive package in a long while. The next step will be for EU leaders to mull over and (very likely) back the Commission’s recommendation on Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia when they meet for their end-of-year summit on 14-15 December. It will be a rough summit by all means, EU officials and diplomats agree. The key issue will be the accession talk decisions, but the limelight will almost certainly be hijacked by the tough battle over a proposed EU budget revision, which includes the €50 billion in new aid for Kyiv. The threat of Hungary and Slovakia potentially teaming up to push their own priorities promises lengthy discussions that could spill over between the two topics, likely with attempts by Budapest and Bratislava to force a ‘package deal’ of sorts. Seasoned EU summit watchers even suggest there might be a decision to stretch talks into the weekend to broker agreements on the flurry of topics on the agenda. | 