Despite President Volodymyr Zelensky’s requests for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, the process requires a serious overhaul of a country’s political, judicial and economic systems. Credit … Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
It was a passionate plea: as war broke out in his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called in early March for permission to join the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc, which he had helped preserve. peace in Europe for decades.
“We have shown that we are at least exactly the same as you,” he told the European Parliament. “So show that you’re with us, show that he won’t let us go, show that you’re really European.”
On Friday, his petition received a positive endorsement when the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, recommended that Ukraine be granted candidate status in the country’s candidacy to become a member of the bloc.
However, Zelensky’s aspirations for the EU are unlikely to be met soon: joining the bloc is a painstaking and arduous process that could take up to a decade. Poland, for example, made a formal request to join the bloc in 1994 and was not admitted until 2004.
For a country to join, its candidacy must be approved by all EU member states, which are now 27. It must also make its political, judicial and economic system compatible with the bloc by adopting the common law system. of the EU, as well as more than 80,000 pages of rules and regulations on things like environmental standards and food hygiene standards.
And while there are precedents for quick offers (Sweden and Finland managed to join the Union a few years after applying), a quick approach is uncommon. In addition, they have been waiting for years for the incorporation of other countries, such as Albania, Bosnia and Serbia, which makes it difficult for the European Union to move more quickly to Ukraine.
Beyond that, the bloc also has a measure of expansive fatigue after being shaken by economic crises, Brexit and the pandemic, as well as actions by member countries that break rules like Hungary.
Ukraine has already moved closer to Europe and has an association agreement with the European Union, signed in 2014 and concluded in 2017, in which it undertook to intensify economic and political ties with the European Union. block.
Ukrainians have been keen to forge closer ties with Europe, and in 2013 hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest when then-President Viktor F. Yanukovych leaned toward Russia backtracked on the signing of an association agreement. with the union.
Whatever the challenges for Ukraine’s hopes for the EU, the Russian war has sparked an outpouring of solidarity on the bloc, sparking some of the harshest sanctions in its history. Central and Eastern European countries such as Poland and the Baltic nations, which lived for decades behind the curtain of steel and where memories of Russian submission are deep, have been among the most enthusiastic in supporting Ukraine’s membership. .
Most Europeans welcomed the expansion of the union to the east in May 2004, when it admitted 10 former communist countries, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, because, among other things, it consolidated the demise of the Soviet bloc and helped spread economic and political liberalism. all over the continent.
The European Union’s ability to offer accession to countries has been one of its main foreign policy tools in the post-Cold War world. The prospect of joining forces forced Bulgaria and Romania to try to tackle corruption and accelerated the arrest of war criminals in Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.
While Ukraine’s EU accession process is likely to be gradual and face significant challenges, the country’s attempt to establish closer ties with NATO and the European Union underscores how it seems that President Vladimir V. Putin’s attempt to force Ukraine back into Russian orbit seems to be taking place. the opposite effect.