EU countries unanimously back Ukraine — except on
its bid to join the EU
Kyiv’s demand for ‘candidate status’ sets off fierce,
fractious debate.
BY DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN, BARBARA MOENS, HANS VON DER BURCHARD, JAKOB HANKE VELA AND MAÏA DE
LA BAUME
June 15,
2022 10:43 pm
EU
countries are all for Ukraine in its war against Russia, but they are all over
the map when it comes to Ukraine’s demand to be recognized as a candidate for EU
membership.
The
European Commission on Friday is expected to recommend formal candidate status
for Ukraine and for neighboring Moldova, but the final decision requires
unanimity among the 27 EU heads of state and government who will gather for a
European Council summit in Brussels next week but still don’t agree on what to
do.
Rejecting
Ukraine’s request — or even a fudge nodding to future “membership perspective”
— would be a devastating blow for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,
potentially demoralizing many of his more than 40 million citizens, and
especially his military, which continues to take heavy causalities as it fights
off Russian invaders who are now occupying large swathes of the south and east
of the country.
Such a
rejection would also further inflame Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
fantasies about reclaiming a sphere of influence resembling that of the Soviet
Union and its superpower status during the Cold War. Supporters of Ukraine’s
membership bid say that anything less than candidate status would encourage
Putin to prolong the war.
But
officials in some EU governments — notably Denmark and Portugal — have voiced
strong reluctance to granting candidate status, arguing that if Ukraine were
not at war, it would not remotely meet the qualifications for starting
membership talks. Moldova, they suggest, would be even further behind in the
necessary preparations.
Other EU
governments have voiced support for granting candidate status, but are pushing
to set conditions making clear that actual accession negotiations could not
begin until Ukraine is once again whole and at peace, and that Kyiv has taken
greater strides in fighting corruption, strengthening the rule of law, and
overhauling democratic institutions.
Most
eastern EU countries, especially Poland and the Baltics, strongly favor
granting Ukraine candidate status, and officials in some of those countries
have even expressed a willingness to fast-track the accession process.
“There is
no alternative to a clear and strong political message of EUCO granting Ukraine
candidate status,” Poland’s Ambassador to the EU Andrzej Sadoś said, adding:
“In my opinion, Ukraine will get candidate status next week at EUCO.”
As for the
possibility of the European Council imposing strict conditions that Ukraine
would have to meet in order to start accession talks, Sadoś said: “On necessary
reforms and modernization, let’s wait for Commission’s opinion on Friday. It’s
obvious and accession negotiations are about it, but to effectively reform we
need first to stop the war.”
In a sign
of the fierce and ongoing disagreement among member countries, a revised draft
of the conclusions for next week’s European Council summit, prepared on
Wednesday morning, included a section headlined: “MEMBERSHIP APPLICATIONS of
UKRAINE, REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA AND GEORGIA” but there was no accompanying text at
all.
Some
diplomats, noting the particularly strident views in Warsaw, Vilnius, Tallinn
and Riga, warned of a dangerous fault line between Eastern and Western Europe
on the issue. But in fact, the divisions among the member states are hardly so
clearly defined.
Courting
the big states
On a very
pragmatic level, Ukraine’s chances of candidate status would be nil without the
support of France and Germany.
French
President Emmanuel Macron has a particularly crucial role given that his
country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, and
therefore is responsible for brokering any debate among the EU countries.
During a
visit to Moldova on Wednesday, Macron appeared to throw his weight behind the
membership bids of Moldova and Ukraine — while throwing cold water on Georgia’s
prospects.
But he also
cited the sensitive issue regarding long delays in membership negotiations with
Western Balkan countries such as Albania and North Macedonia. Those delays have
been cited by some officials skeptical of granting candidate status, saying it
would be a mistake to give Ukrainians false hope of joining anytime soon.
“I don’t
think there’ll be an intermediate status, nor an intermediate answer,” Macron said.
“I don’t want to anticipate the decision, because my role is to build a
consensus. But my wish is to send a positive clear message on this topic. But
we have to take into consideration other member states and countries that are
already in the candidacy process in the Western Balkans.”
Macron’s
comments were inherently contradictory and not only because he was both
acknowledging his obligation as the Council’s “honest broker” while also
staking out a firm position. Taking into consideration the views of more
skeptical member states will potentially require giving a less than clear
signal to Ukraine and Moldova.
As for
Georgia’s membership bid, Macron suggested it was a non-starter at the moment.
“I want us to send a clear and positive signal, but we have to build unanimity
across the members,” Macron said, reiterating his stance. “I don’t think we can
dissociate Moldova from Ukraine in the perspectives that we give.” But he
added: “Georgia does not have the same place geopolitically.”
German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz also seemed to be moving cautiously toward support for
Ukraine’s candidate status, but a bit less enthusiastically and with his Social
Democrats under severe pressure from their government coalition partners, the
Greens and liberals.
Still, it
was not yet clear whether Scholz would wholeheartedly support the granting of
candidate status, or would back a “potential” membership candidacy under
conditions — a solution that is being described in Berlin as promising Ukraine
a “membership perspective.”
Such
wishy-washy language will only infuriate Kyiv, but other EU officials have
cautioned that Zelenskyy would be wise to tone down some of his recent
criticism of Germany, France and Italy — particularly if Scholz, Macron and
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi make a joint visit to Kyiv as is expected
this week.
In
Germany’s case, the Ukrainian president has complained of slow and inconsistent
support, including on weapons deliveries, while France and Italy faced rebuke
for expressing willingness to compromise with Putin. Macron’s repeated comments
that Russia should not be “humiliated” have faced particular derision in
Ukraine.
Zelenskyy
has also irked EU leaders with his constant praise of U.K. Prime Minister Boris
Johnson, who is viewed with disdain in Brussels and other EU capitals as
untrustworthy and duplicitous for backtracking on aspects of the Brexit
agreement, particularly the protocol on Northern Ireland that Johnson himself
negotiated with the EU.
For Ukraine
and its supporters, many leaders in Western Europe seem dangerously detached
from reality, including Macron who proposed creating a “European political
community” as a sort of alternative structure for countries to strengthen ties
with the EU. Macron had said the community would be open to countries like
Ukraine that want to join the EU, as well as to countries that had left the
bloc — a clear reference to Britain.
The fact
that the EU and U.K. were once again in a fierce conflict over the Northern
Ireland protocol on Wednesday only offered further ammunition to Macron’s
critics. On Wednesday, another EU diplomat echoed Macron’s proposal and even
made the wild suggestion that Russia might one day join such a European
community.
This
diplomat said that the “European political community would not be an
alternative to enlargement,” but “rather a type of coordination for those
countries that don’t want to join EU or have left it, where we currently have
no forum.” This diplomat said the U.K., Switzerland, Norway, Armenia and
Azerbaijan could be potential members “and one day Russia — if and when it
meets conditions such as not attacking another country and being democratic.”
If that
sounds crazy, officials in Berlin suggested it would be equally nuts to expect
that the EU would allow Ukraine to simply vault over the normal accession
requirements and gain quick entry as an EU member.
Earlier
this week, Scholz stressed during a news conference with Slovak Prime Minister
Eduard Heger in Berlin that any potential enlargement of the EU must be
“closely related to the question of the further development of the EU,” meaning
the bloc’s ability to reform itself and take decisions in areas such as foreign
policy without each individual member country being able to impose its veto.
Ukraine’s
relatively large population, compared to many EU member countries, would mean
that it would stand to gain a large delegation in the European Parliament, and
substantial muscle in decisions based on qualified majority voting, in which
population size is a factor. Ukraine’s economic weakness would also position it
to receive a relatively large portion of EU budget money.
German
concerns
Scholz is
facing pressure not only from eastern EU countries but also internally,
including from his Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens and
ministers from the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who are strongly
pushing for Ukraine to have closer ties to the bloc.
The FDP’s
European policy spokesperson Michael Link warned that a failure to decide on at
least a “membership perspective” for Ukraine at next week’s EU leaders’ summit
would be “a signal” to Putin “that he succeeds with his divisive, destructive
policy. After all, his goal is to keep Ukraine away from Europe with all his
might.”
Link added:
“I’m really looking forward, and hoping, that the German Social Democrats will
not miss this opportunity to give such an important signal now.”
Green MP
Anton Hofreiter, the chair of the Bundestag’s European affairs committee, made
similar remarks: “It is good that Olaf Scholz is going to Ukraine. It would be
even better if he supports Ukraine getting candidate status,” he said.
Crucially,
there are also signs that Scholz’s own Social Democrats are beginning to move
on the issue: “I agree that a clearly formulated prospect for accession must be
created at the summit” of EU leaders next week, said Markus Töns, a lawmaker
from the SPD.
“However,
this does not mean that negotiations for accession can begin immediately. That
will only be possible once the war is over and there is a peace treaty between
Ukraine and Russia,” Töns cautioned, adding that the EU must also “honestly
tell Ukraine” that “this will be a very complex and lengthy process.”
German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Several EU
officials and diplomats described the debate as chaotic and said it was
impossible to predict the precise language that European Council heads would
include in their conclusions.
Some said
the European Commission was taking advantage of its role by issuing a positive
recommendation without having to take responsibility for tackling tough
questions about Ukraine’s readiness to become a candidate country.
“There are
no clear landing zones in sight yet, but a lot will depend on what the
Commission proposes in terms of conditionality,” one diplomat from a Western EU
country said.
This
diplomat said a reasonable approach would be to grant candidate status and impose
realistic, necessary conditions. “You give a kind of political recognition of
candidate status and then you start conditioning that,” the diplomat said,
adding that some countries, including Sweden, Portugal, the Netherlands,
Denmark and Belgium, wanted to see a “clear timeframe.”
“Much will
depend on the German position,” the Western diplomat added, “and that is linked
to the Balkans.”
Two EU
diplomats said that Bulgaria, which has blocked membership talks with North
Macedonia — and by extension Albania, since their bids are linked — had
signaled a potential softening in its position during a meeting of EU permanent
representatives on Wednesday. Such a move could make it substantially easier
for Scholz — who has warned that it would be difficult to start talks with new
countries as long as the North Macedonia issue remains unresolved — to support
candidate status for Ukraine and Moldova.
Looming in
the background of the debate on Ukraine are profound questions about the future
of decision-making in the EU — including the possibility that with Ukraine as a
member, the EU’s biggest powers, France and Germany, could be outvoted on
decisions made by qualified majority.
“Once
Ukraine is a member of the Union, Germany and France can be overruled under QMV,”
the Western EU diplomat said. “Ukraine is a locomotive that pulls a lot of
trains.”
Lili Bayer
and Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting.
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