Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said fast-tracking Ukraine’s EU membership requests “will take time- months if not years”. 

His comments came after the first day of the EU Summit in Versailles where leaders met to discuss their response to the war in Ukraine. 

Leaders clashed over advancing Ukraine’s membership with some saying the country’s immediate future was in the “association agreement” the country has signed with the bloc. 

Others championed the membership bid with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda hailed it a “historic night at Versailles.”