President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the EU countries to move to the next stage of rapprochement between Ukraine and the European Union.

As the president said, speaking on Thursday at a meeting of the Council of the EU via video link, despite the war, Ukraine does not stop the institutional transformation in the state.

He recalled that only this week the Verkhovna Rada approved three European integration laws, in particular the law on national minorities, on the modernization of the principles of the work of the Constitutional Court and on media.

"And this is just one illustration of the many things that we have done to prepare for the next stage of rapprochement between Ukraine and the EU, namely, an assessment of the implementation of the recommendations of the European Commission, which we expect from you soon and we kindly ask you to do this and step up this process in order to move on to the start of negotiations on Ukraine's membership in the EU," the president said.

He also once again thanked the leaders of European countries for supporting Ukraine in obtaining EU candidacy.