The heads of state and government of the EU countries have put a significant damper on Ukraine's hopes of rapid accession to the European Union.

The declaration of the EU summit in Versailles early Friday morning said: "Ukraine is part of our European family." Concrete commitments to Kyiv with a view to rapid EU accession were not made, even after the eight-hour summit deliberations .

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and his colleagues merely promised Ukraine to further strengthen ties and deepen the partnership in order to support them on their European path.

Scholz said it was "very important that we continue to pursue the things that we have decided in the past".

It was stressed that the EU Commission had been quickly tasked with examining Ukraine's application for EU membership.

The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte gave the request a clear rejection.

"There is no such thing as accelerated accession," he said.

His Luxembourg colleague, Xavier Bettel, said he was not a rule fetishist, but that there were conditions for joining the EU.

"Final test for Europe"

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy applied for EU membership last week in view of the Russian war against his country.

However, joining the EU is a long and complicated process.

Even if the EU Commission evaluates the application positively, the start of the admission negotiations could still be a long time coming, since all EU states have to agree.

Ukraine, on the other hand, is also hoping for significantly more speed.

On the night of Friday, Selenskyj even spoke of the "final test for Europe" with a view to the accession question.

He believes "that our people, our state, our army have already done everything to see us there among equals, to invite us there," he said in a video message.

The Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Andriy Melnyk, told the dpa: "It's not about getting membership tomorrow.

We don't want a free pass.

But we want that to happen in an expedited process, within a few years.”

The EU and Ukraine signed an association agreement in 2017 that aims to deepen political and economic relations.

In addition to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia have also recently applied for membership.

The EU summit pointed out that the EU Commission had also been asked to assess these two applications.