While visiting Ukraine for a summit with President Volodymyr Zelensky, top European Union officials showed continued support for Kiev’s fight against Russian aggression. But Ukraine will likely be disappointed in its larger goal: to be admitted to the bloc’s economic and political partnership as an EU member state.
Here’s what you need to know about Ukraine’s EU bid.
A quick accession is not possible.
In June, the bloc officially granted Ukraine, along with Moldova, EU candidate status, the first step in a long-term engagement often takes a decade or more. For example, Poland made a formal request to join the bloc in 1994 and was accepted in 2004.
To participate, a country needs its candidacy to be unanimously approved by all EU member states, currently 27. That country must also make its political, judicial and economic systems compatible with the bloc by adopting a common law system, as well as more than 80,000 pages of rules and regulations on things like environmental standards and food hygiene rules.
A senior EU official said it can take up to 18 months for the European Commission to evaluate a country’s application before moving it on to member states. And while there is precedent for fast-tracking—Sweden and Finland joined the union within a few years of filing—fast-track approaches are rare.
Other countries are lining up ahead of Ukraine.
Several countries have waited years to join, including Albania, Bosnia and Serbia, making it difficult for the bloc to move any faster towards Ukraine.
In addition, the bloc is also tired of expansion after being hit by economic crises, Brexit and the pandemic, as well as government misconduct. member countries break the law like Hungary.
The prospect of EU membership has spurred reforms in other countries.
The European Union’s ability to offer membership to one country was one of its greatest foreign policy tools in the post-Cold War world. The prospect of accession has spurred Bulgaria and Romania to tackle corruption and accelerate the arrest of war criminals in Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.
Over the past few days, the Ukrainian authorities have conduct raids and fire officials in an intensified effort to illustrate its commitment to stamping out corruption.
Ukraine has been very enthusiastic about forging closer links with Europe.
Before Ukraine became the official EU candidate, it signed an association agreement in 2014 in which it agreed to strengthen economic and political ties with the bloc. A year earlier, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians take to the streets to protest when the president at the time, Viktor F. Yanukovych, who leaned toward Russia, withdrew from signing an association agreement with the coalition.
Whatever the challenges facing Ukraine’s EU, Russia’s aggression has created a wave of solidarity within the bloc, attracting some the toughest sanctions in its history. Eastern and Central European countries such as Poland and the Baltic states, which have lived for decades after the Iron Curtain and are deeply rooted in the memory of Russian enslavement, are among the most enthusiastic about support Ukraine’s membership.
Many Europeans welcomed the bloc’s eastward expansion in May 2004, when the bloc admitted 10 mostly former Communist countries — including the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland — because, in Among other reasons, the bloc underpinned the collapse of the Soviet bloc and helped spread economic and political clout. liberalism across the continent.
While Ukraine’s EU membership is likely to be gradual, the country’s efforts to forge closer ties with the bloc and with NATO, a military alliance with many common members. with the bloc – highlighting President Vladimir V. Putin’s efforts to bring Ukraine back to Russia. force trajectories seem to have the opposite effect.
