The European parliament will adopt a resolution on Tuesday calling on EU institutions to work towards granting EU candidate status to Ukraine and in the meantime to continue to work towards integration into the EU single market, the Guardian's Daniel Boffey writes.

The call from MEPs follows images from Kyiv of president Volodymyr Zelenskiy signing a formal letter of application for EU membership.

An EU official has explained the process. The letter of application is written to the president of the council of the EU which is currently held by France.

Member states, the European parliament and national parliaments are then informed of the application by the council.

A meeting of the 27 EU affairs ministers, known as the general affairs council, needs to take a decision to formally seek the European Commission's opinion on the application.

It would normally take 15 to 18 months for the commission to issue its opinion, although that period could be significantly shortened "depending on the political considerations", the official said.

There is a pre-accession period of varying length, during which the candidate country adapts its institutions, standards and infrastructure to enable it to meet its obligations as a member state. The accession process involves compliance with the accession criteria including adoption and implementation of EU law.

Another key is that previously, Ukrainian public opinion was fairly evenly split between "pro-Russian" and "pro-European", forcing their governments to tread warily. This (by my best guess) is now a thing of the past : plausibly, a certain number of people will have changed their minds. So the pace of reform will accelerate.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Several presidents of EU member states have published an open letter calling for Ukraine's swift candidacy into the EU.

The letter reads as follows:

We, the Presidents of the EU member states: the Republic of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Poland, the Slovak Republic, and the Republic of Slovenia strongly believe that Ukraine deserves receiving an immediate EU accession perspective.

Therefore, we call on the EU Member States to consolidate highest political support to Ukraine and enable the EU institutions to conduct steps to immediately grant Ukraine a EU candidate country status and open the process of negotiations.

In this critical moment, we reiterate our full solidarity with Ukraine and its People.

The open letter follows an appeal earlier today from Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Ukraine to be granted EU membership immediately under a special procedure, with Ukraine formally applying for membership.