OPINION: Ukraine and its Constitution — EU membership requires rewriting the fundamental law

Introduction: A Constitution that must change for Ukraine to enter

June 29, 2026: a decisive constitutional step

On June 29, 2026, Ukraine confirmed its trajectory toward a major revision of its Constitution. This revision is not a choice — it is a condition imposed by the process of accession to the European Union. To join the EU, a candidate state must be prepared to transfer sovereign powers to supranational bodies. Ukraine's current Constitution does not permit this. It must therefore be rewritten — partially, but in depth — to open that door.

The first "fundamentals" cluster of accession negotiations was opened on June 15, 2026. From Dublin on July 1, 2026, Volodymyr Zelensky declared having "good chances" that the 5 remaining clusters would be opened in July 2026 under the Irish presidency of the EU Council. If that ambitious timeline materializes, it would mark an unprecedented acceleration of the accession process.

What the word "revision" actually conceals

Ukraine's constitutional revision is not simply a legal exercise. It represents a major symbolic rupture with the model of absolute sovereignty inherited from the post-Soviet era. Since 1991, Ukraine has built its state around a jealous conception of its sovereignty — understandable for a country that had just emerged from the USSR. Accepting the transfer of powers to Brussels means accepting a new form of power-sharing, freely consented, within a space of shared values.

This philosophical transformation is as important as the legal changes. Ukraine is not joining the EU by default or out of economic necessity. It is joining a liberal democratic project at the heart of a war that has cost it precisely the illusion that sovereignty alone protects. The constitutional revision is the legal translation of a civilizational choice.

The accession clusters: where Ukraine stands

The "fundamentals" cluster as a first step

Ukraine's accession process to the EU is structured around 6 thematic clusters grouping the 35 chapters of the acquis communautaire. The opening of the "fundamentals" cluster on June 15, 2026 — covering democracy, the rule of law, fundamental rights, and justice — is considered the foundation for everything else. Without solid progress on this cluster, the others cannot advance credibly.

Ukraine has accomplished significant reforms in these areas since 2022: judicial system reform, strengthening of the anti-corruption framework, adoption of legislation aligned with European standards. These reforms convinced the European Commission to open the first cluster. But the road ahead is long: each cluster requires negotiations, assessments, and new legislation.

The 5 remaining clusters and the Irish presidency

The Irish presidency of the EU Council, which began on July 1, 2026, has made advancing Ukraine's accession process a stated priority. Dublin has five clearly identified priority tasks, including accelerating negotiations with Ukraine and other candidates. If the 5 remaining clusters open in July 2026 — as Zelensky hopes — it would be a strong political signal to Moscow: Ukraine's European integration is irreversible.

This acceleration is politically motivated as much as technically justified. The 2024 European elections and government changes in several member states have created a window of opportunity. The Irish presidency wants to capitalize on that window before European political dynamics shift again.

The farmland question: the bomb inside the revision

The constitutional ban on long-term leases

One of the most politically sensitive elements of Ukraine's constitutional revision concerns agricultural land. The current Constitution prohibits long-term leases of agricultural land to foreigners — a protectionist provision written into the fundamental law to prevent the sale of the country's assets to outside interests after independence. European law requires harmonization in this area, which implies a relaxation of this ban.

This question touches a deep identity within Ukrainian society. Ukraine is the "breadbasket of Europe" — its black soil (chernozem) is among the most fertile in the world. The fear of seeing this land bought up by foreign interests is rooted in history and in the memory of Soviet dispossession. Any constitutional revision touching this subject will be politically explosive, even if it is technically necessary for accession.

The protections being considered

The Ukrainian government is exploring protection mechanisms compatible with European law that would allow long-term leases while maintaining limits on direct foreign ownership. Several EU member states have similar arrangements to protect their agriculture. The challenge is to find a formulation that satisfies European harmonization requirements without triggering a domestic political crisis in Ukraine.

That negotiation illustrates the complexity of the accession process: it is not simply adopting European regulations. It is adapting a society with its own memories, its own fears, its own red lines, to the frameworks of a common space. The EU knows this. It has already negotiated these compromises with other candidates. But Ukraine is navigating these negotiations under wartime pressure, which makes everything harder and everything more urgent.

Hungary as an obstacle: Budapest's handbrake

Budapest obstructs, but cannot stop

Viktor Orbán's Hungary has paused Ukraine's accession process multiple times since 2022. Budapest advances arguments tied to the rights of Hungarian minorities in Transcarpathia, but observers largely recognize that these objections serve mainly to block a process Orbán does not want to see advance, for reasons related to his closeness to Moscow. Hungary has become the Kremlin's Trojan horse in Brussels' corridors.

The EU's institutional mechanics, however, have evolved to limit any single member state's ability to block indefinitely. Qualified majority voting on several key issues, combined with growing political pressure on Budapest, has reduced Hungary's obstructive capacity. It can delay, complicate, and create friction — it can no longer stop the process if the other 26 member states are aligned.

Moldova and other candidates as context

Ukraine is not alone in this process. Moldova's candidacy is advancing on a parallel trajectory — faster in some areas, more constrained in others. The Western Balkans enlargement and other candidates create a framework in which Ukrainian accession fits as a top-tier political priority rather than an exception. That collective dynamic is useful: it normalizes the process and makes it harder for its opponents to isolate it.

For the EU itself, this enlargement represents a major institutional challenge. Integrating Ukraine — a country of 40 million people with an enormous agricultural economy — into the mechanics of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and structural funds will require deep internal reform. Some member states worry about their own budget allocations. These resistances are real and must not be underestimated.

Zelensky in Dublin: "good chances" for July

A declaration of confidence from Ireland

On July 1, 2026, from Dublin, Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his confidence that the 5 remaining clusters could be opened in July 2026. That declaration is more than an expression of hope — it is a political communication aimed at several audiences simultaneously: Brussels, which must make the technical decision; European capitals, which must approve; the Ukrainian public, which needs to see accession advancing; and Moscow, which must understand that this trajectory is irreversible.

Zelensky's presence in Dublin also marks the symbolism of this presidency. Ireland has one of the strongest relationships with Ukraine among member states — historically neutral but clearly committed to supporting Kyiv since 2022. This presidency embodies the idea that Europe can be both realistic on security and ambitious on integration.

The role of the Recovery Conference

The Ukraine Recovery Conference, organized in June 2026, also highlighted tensions between two approaches: one that sees reconstruction as an investment conditioned on reforms, and one that insists on humanitarian and economic urgency without preconditions. That tension was not resolved — but it illustrates the complexity of a process in which economic reconstruction, political accession, and military resistance are all unfolding simultaneously.

Ukraine must negotiate its European integration while conducting a war, while rebuilding liberated areas, while maintaining a functioning economy, and while reforming its institutions. No other candidate country has ever faced this accumulation of simultaneous pressures. That is why Zelensky's ambitious timeline deserves to be recognized — and supported.

Judicial and anti-corruption reforms: the keystone of the file

The rule of law as a non-negotiable condition

The EU has set a clear condition for Ukraine: a thorough reform of its judicial system and effective anti-corruption work. This is not an administrative formality — it is a fundamental requirement that conditions the credibility of the entire accession process. Since 2022, Ukraine has adopted several key pieces of legislation: reform of the High Council of Justice, creation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), strengthening of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO). These institutions have begun to produce visible results, even if the road remains long.

The European Commission assesses these advances quarterly. Its reports since 2023 acknowledge the effort while identifying persistent gaps: real judicial independence, the speed of anti-corruption proceedings, the capacity to prosecute high-level figures. These gaps do not block the process, but they slow its pace. The opening of clusters depends in part on their resolution.

Reforms under wartime pressure

Reforming a judicial system during a war is an almost unprecedented challenge. Judges, prosecutors, and civil servants are also reservists, internally displaced people, or relatives of combatants. Human resources are exhausted. Budgets are compressed. And yet Ukraine keeps moving forward — because these reforms are the condition of its European integration, and that integration is the condition of its economic reconstruction after the war.

It is a virtuous cycle that is hard to start, but Ukraine has started it. European institutions, Ukrainian civil society, and partners such as the OECD and the IMF are supporting this work. There is genuine energy in this process — a determination that contrasts with the sluggishness of some candidate countries that advance on paper without actually wanting to change in practice.

What Ukrainian accession changes for Europe

An EU of 28 members and the institutional challenge

Ukraine's entry into the EU — if it comes to pass — will fundamentally transform the Union's balance. With 40 million people, Ukraine would become one of the five most populous member states. It would be a major agricultural and industrial power within the European space. And it would bring a unique experience of democratic resilience under military pressure that would enrich the Union's institutional culture.

European institutions will need to be reformed: the European Parliament, the Commission, the Council — all their operational mechanisms were designed for an EU of different size and composition. Ukrainian accession provides the political impetus needed for institutional reforms that member states have been unable to impose on themselves voluntarily since the Lisbon Treaty of 2007.

The geopolitics of enlargement

Ukraine's accession to the EU is not only a matter of economic and institutional integration. It is a geopolitical event of the first order. It repositions the EU's eastern border directly against Russia. It integrates into the European space a country that has proven its will and its capacity to defend democratic values at the greatest cost.

For Moscow, this is the strategic defeat that the war was supposedly launched to prevent. For Europe, it is the culmination of an integration project that the war has unexpectedly accelerated. Ukraine's constitutional revision, in that context, is not a technical detail — it is a stone in the architecture of the new world.

Ukrainian civil society: the invisible engine of reforms

Organizations that do not stop during the war

Behind Zelensky's political decisions and Brussels' negotiations, there is a fabric of Ukrainian civil society that pushes, monitors, documents, and presses. Hundreds of Ukrainian non-governmental organizations work on judicial reform, budget transparency, anti-corruption, and legislative alignment with European standards. These organizations did not pause their work on February 24, 2022. They intensified it.

Groups such as Transparency International Ukraine, the Dejure Foundation, and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union play a watchdog role that official institutions cannot always play themselves. They document progress, identify blockages, and hold the European Commission and member state governments to account. Their role is recognized by Brussels as an essential component of the accession process.

The role of Ukraine's independent press

Ukraine's independent press — Ukrainska Pravda, the Kyiv Independent, The Kyiv Post — continues to investigate, criticize, and maintain a culture of accountability in a country at war. This press is a condition of real democracy, and it is recognized as such by European evaluators. Its persistence, despite political, economic, and security pressures, is one of the most positive signals of Ukrainian democratic maturity.

The Ukraine negotiating its accession to the EU is not only a government signing agreements. It is a society that has developed real democratic self-monitoring mechanisms — imperfect, under pressure, but real. That is precisely what the EU requires, and it is precisely what Russia has never had. The difference is not rhetorical. It is structural.

Conclusion: The fundamental law as the symbol of an irreversible choice

Rewriting to belong

Ukraine's constitutional revision is not merely a legal exercise. It is the act by which a people affirms, in the most fundamental text of its existence as a nation, that it belongs to a space of shared values. Transferring sovereign powers to the EU, modifying the rules on agricultural land, aligning institutions with European standards — all of this says: we have chosen, and that choice is constitutional.

Under Russian bombs, with a war that has lasted more than four years, Ukraine is negotiating its entry into Europe at the same time as it defends its survival. That dual effort — military and institutional — has no equivalent in the recent history of European integration. And it deserves a commensurate response: clusters opened quickly, an accelerated process, a Europe that says clearly to Kyiv that the door is open.

The timeline as a message

If the 5 remaining clusters open in July 2026 under the Irish presidency — as Zelensky hopes — it will be a political message of remarkable clarity: the war does not slow down integration. It accelerates it. For the Ukrainians dying at the front, knowing that their country is advancing toward Europe while resisting Russia is not an abstraction. It is a reason to hold. And a reason to hope.

Ukraine's Constitution will soon be different. This is not a weakness — it is proof that democracy can reform under pressure, that institutions can evolve, that history is not a foregone conclusion. That is precisely what distinguishes Ukraine from Russia, today, in 2026.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Editorial positioning

This article is written from an explicitly pro-Ukraine perspective and in favor of Ukrainian accession to the EU. The author considers that this accession is both politically right and strategically necessary for European security. The positions on Hungary, Russia, and the EU's institutional dynamics reflect that stated stance.

Limits of available information

Information on the opening of accession clusters and Zelensky's declarations from Dublin is based on sources available as of July 1, 2026. Developments regarding specific constitutional revisions are still under discussion at the time of writing. The timeline for opening the remaining clusters depends on political decisions yet to come.

Sources

Primary sources

Censor.net — Ireland takes over EU Council presidency; Zelensky voices expectations — July 1, 2026

Euronews — Five pressing tasks for Ireland as it takes over EU Council presidency — July 1, 2026

News Ukraine — Ukrainian political news — July 2026

Secondary sources

Euronews — Can the Recovery Conference mend a fraying partnership? — June 25, 2026

Ground News — Hungary hits pause on EU membership bids of Ukraine and Moldova — June 2026

Ukrainska Pravda — Updates on Ukraine's EU accession process — June 26, 2026