Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger has called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to support Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova as candidates for EU membership.

According to several officials, the European Commission intends to recommend that Ukraine be granted official EU candidate country status, but the final decision rests with the European Council.

“We have to realize that the enlargement is a must,” Heger told Politico and German daily Welt in a joint interview ahead of his bilateral meeting with Scholz. “The world needs Europe to be strong. And the countries are waiting.”

Later at a press conference with Heger, Scholz avoided giving a clear answer on Ukraine’s membership bid, only saying: “We as the EU continue what we have done so far: act in unity.”

The German chancellor was much franker when it came to EU enlargement in the Western Balkans, a goal he once again raised on Monday, arguing that any further EU accession must go hand in hand with the bloc's reforms.

Heger said in an interview that accepting Ukraine or other countries as official candidates for EU membership would only be the first step and any further progress toward their actual accession to the bloc must be “merit-based."

The Slovak leader added that any country should be able to apply for EU membership, but only those who fully demonstrate the necessary will to carry out the necessary democratic and institutional reforms should get there.

“Every country should be given the opportunity for individual effort for becoming a member of the EU. And depending on their effort, they will decide when they will become a member,” Heger said, stressing that “we have to have a certain form of relationship” with other types of countries.

“We see that we have for long been compromising our values for cheap oil and gas,” he said, adding that this was a reason why Slovakia was still hugely reliant on Russian energy imports and had to request some exemptions from the EU’s oil embargo against Russia.