2023-12-17 04:40:00
It is a high risk operation. The enlargement of the European Union to integrate Ukraine and Moldova marks a new future for Europe. The next community club with up to 36 members (with the Balkans and Georgia), more than 500 million inhabitants, will be more heterogeneous, economically, socially, culturally. And the consequences for security of this expansion, during and after, are oceanic. It is the first time that the Union – in which there is no longer any room for gray zones – reaches out to a country, Ukraine, that is resisting in a large-scale war, victim of the aggression of a great nuclear power, Russia; and another, Moldova, which does not have full control of its territory and struggles to repel the tentacles that the Kremlin insists on maintaining. The historic decision of the Twenty-Seven on Thursday to open accession talks with kyiv and Chisinau is one of the most transformative undertaken by the Union.
Some skeptics see this week’s resolution as purely symbolic—“The next Ukrainian commissioner has not yet been born,” one veteran diplomat predicted somewhat ironically. These same people consider the lack of unanimity, due to the veto of Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán in the European Council, to throw kyiv an economic lifeline of 50 billion euros to Kiev as a great failure of the Union. And even more so now, that the support of the United States is foundering due to its internal struggles (mainly by the Republicans). But there are other tools, and the EU will provide Ukraine with that oxygen tank, with or without Hungary’s support.
Instead, the promise of accession—which was achieved because Orbán withdrew, against all odds, his veto—plants a permanent anchor. It remains to be seen whether the promise to support Ukraine “for as long as necessary” is a sufficient thread to resist a long war or the differentiating element that allows it to be won. For now, it has been the first option. “Washington could falter or even go down completely and for the EU that would be almost a tragedy, it would make the situation very difficult, but the war is on the European continent and that, in one way or another, marks reality,” says one high community source.
kyiv, although it needs the funds to stay afloat and the economic issue is more immediate than the prospect of joining the Union, sees the decision as a turning point. “It is a victory for Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media on Friday. “A victory for all of Europe, which motivates, inspires and reinforces,” added the Ukrainian leader. “Let us embark on this journey together to build an even stronger and more united Europe,” claimed the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu on X (formerly Twitter). In Georgia, which has been designated as a candidate country, hundreds of citizens have taken to the streets these days with the blue, star-spangled flag of the European Union.
Rally in Tbilisi, Georgia, to celebrate that the EU has granted candidate status to the country. DAVID MDZINARISHVILI (EFE)
Like the banners that were planted in kyiv’s Maidan Square a decade ago, in the pro-European and anti-corruption mobilizations that overthrew the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. Those protests led to a bloodbath, in the reaction of autocrat Vladimir Putin to illegally annex Crimea, promoting and fueling the war in Donbas. A conflict that, almost 700 days ago, merged with the large-scale war that Putin launched to erase Ukraine’s sovereignty and prevent the country’s complete turn towards the West that has been inevitable.
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kyiv—despite the difficulty of doing so in parallel with fighting Russia—and Chisinau must now accelerate reforms and the next steps to assimilate to the democratic and organizational standards of the community club. It is a long and difficult process in which, with better or worse results, the Balkans have been involved for years. “The reforms not only lead us to be members of the EU but also make us more resilient and capable of surviving and defending ourselves,” says the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olha Stefanishyna, by email from Kiev.
It has been Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has led the EU to many historic decisions, that has resurrected the process of eastern enlargement. The expansion had been frozen for years, fueling frustration in the Balkans, which now, although slow and perhaps partial, see a possibility.
The geopolitical reality, the ecosystem of the candidates and the threat from Russia (not only with the war in Ukraine, but also with the destabilization and influence maneuvers that mark its playbook for other countries, such as Serbia) and the push of others Actors like China make this next major expansion the most difficult of all. Much more than the Big Bang of 2004, which integrated Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta. But although it takes years to crystallize—even decades, as the diplomat fond of irony points out—the next expansion already marks the present. “It is time to keep promises and get rid of ambiguities. Expansion is no longer a dream. It is time to move forward,” said the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
gradual process
At the moment, the EU is already de facto putting Ukraine under some of its umbrellas—Kiev has been integrated into the electricity market and into several community programs. Furthermore, in Brussels the idea is advancing that the next major enlargement be carried out gradually, with the participation first of the candidate countries (each at their own pace) in elements such as the single market, different representative bodies (observers in Parliament European, for example) and then go up the levels in its incorporation.
In parallel, the EU has determined that it will need to make internal reforms to be able to continue functioning with more than 500 million inhabitants. The Twenty-Seven agreed this week that the roadmap to do so will be set next summer. Now, it’s about seeing what those changes are and when they should be fixed. Budgets, decision-making processes, agricultural policies, and the composition of institutions will have to be reformulated.
The debate will mark the European Parliament elections in June. Meanwhile, in the review of the multi-annual financial framework in recent weeks, some leaders have already negotiated with an eye on the next budgets, to be determined in 2027, which must take into account these internal changes. The new accounts will perhaps already look at the future members (some with one foot in or with hopes of graduating soon), who will become beneficiaries of the cohesion and agriculture funds, compared to the vast majority of current members who will become contributors to the cash of those items.
A neighbor walks in front of a building bombed by Russia in Orijiv, in the Zaporiya region.STRINGER (REUTERS)
The knock on the door of the candidates is already creating tensions in their neighbors, as shown by the protests of farmers and truck drivers in Poland – also in Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania – against Ukrainian cereal that enters the EU without tariffs and the transport of other goods.
Although surveys reveal that the majority of Europeans believe that enlargement must be accelerated and more, as indicated by a special Eurobarometer published this month by the European Parliament, in view of Russia’s maneuvers.
The process towards the next expansion is a powerful test for the unity of the community club. Also “an opportunity for the EU” to raise its geopolitical profile, protect its neighborhood and stabilize the contour and modus operandi of a larger community club, Kykke Friis of the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR) points out in an analysis.
And while in previous integrations (2004, 2007, with Romania and Bulgaria, 2013, with Croatia), the new partners fundamentally sought prosperity (in addition to shared values), two of the current applicants largely seek security measure. “Ukraine’s membership in the EU would in itself be a security commitment,” says the document that the Twenty-Seven designed to protect those promises to kyiv that includes, in addition to financial packages, support for weapons and other elements such as military training. But enlargement is “a geostrategic imperative” also for the current Union, defends analyst Luuk van Middelaar, in a recent report for the Brussels Institute of Geopolitics.
Even so, diplomats and analysts like Friis warn of the gap between expectations and the credibility of enlargement. The process will be prolonged, it will be complex, it may lead to internal problems for the candidates and more friction for the already members. The community institutions will have to manage a balance that does not once again plunge the Balkans into great frustration, and avoid sowing that feeling in Moldova, and that Ukraine adds to the tragedy of the war, disappointment with the European Union. It will not be easy. “The EU keeps its promises,” launched the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Friday, adding: “It has never been so strong and compliant, shaken by multiple crises. [La ampliación] It is an investment in security, stability of our continent and in strong and united democracies.”
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