It was an implicit plea: As war broke out in his country, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in early March asked his country to be allowed to join the European Union, the trade bloc. largest in the world, has helped maintain peace in Europe for decades.
He told the European Parliament: “We have proven that at a minimum we are exactly like you. “So prove that you’re with us, prove that you won’t let us go, prove that you’re really European.”
On Friday, his plea was met with positive approval when the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, recommended that Ukraine be granted candidate status in its bid to become a member. of blocks.
However, Zelensky’s EU aspirations may not be fulfilled anytime soon: Joining the bloc is an arduous and difficult process that could take up to a decade. For example, Poland made a formal request to join the bloc in 1994 and did not join until 2004.
In order for a country to join, its candidacy must be approved by all EU member states, currently number 27. The country must also make its political, judicial and economic systems We are compatible with the bloc by adopting the EU’s common law system, as well as more than 80,000 pages of rules and regulations on things like environmental standards and food hygiene codes.
And while there is precedent for fast-track bids – Sweden and Finland managed to join the Union within a few years of filing – a fast-track approach is rare. Furthermore, other countries have had to wait years to join, including Albania, Bosnia and Serbia, making it difficult for the European Union to move any faster towards Ukraine.
In addition, the bloc also has a tired extension measure after being shaken by the economic crises, Brexit and the pandemic, as well as the actions of member countries that break the rules like Hungary.
Ukraine has been on a path closer to Europe and already has an association agreement with the European Union, signed in 2014 and ending in 2017, in which it agreed to strengthen ties. economic and political with the bloc.
Ukrainians have been very enthusiastic in their desire to establish closer links with Europe, and by 2013, hundreds of thousands of them take to the streets to protest when the president at the time, Viktor F. Yanukovych, who leans towards Russia, blocked the signing of an association agreement with the alliance.
Whatever the challenges to Ukraine’s European Union hopes, Russia’s war has created a wave of solidarity within the bloc, drawing some the toughest sanctions in its history. Eastern and Central European nations like Poland and the Baltic states, which lived decades after the Iron Curtain and harbored deep memories of Russian subjugation, were the most enthusiastic. in support of Ukraine’s membership.
Most Europeans welcomed the union’s eastward expansion in May 2004, when it admitted 10 formerly Communist countries – including the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland – because, among other things, it cemented the collapse of the Soviet bloc and helped spread economic and political liberalism. cross-country.
The ability of the European Union to offer membership to states is one of the European Union’s greatest foreign policy tools in the post-Cold War world. The prospect of joining forces Bulgaria and Romania to try to tackle corruption and speed up the capture of war criminals in Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.
Although Ukraine’s process of becoming an EU member will likely be gradual and face significant challenges, the country’s efforts to forge closer ties with NATO and the European Union underline. President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to bring Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit by force seems to be facing off. opposite effect.
