What a difference a war makes. Four months ago, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy would not have dreamed of supporting Ukraine’s candidacy for the EU. But this Thursday, there they were in a sunny Kyiv, everyone endorses it emphatically. If next week’s EU summit agrees, after the positive opinion just given by the European Commission, it could really be, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after meeting with his visitors to the luckiest parts of Europe, “one of the key European decisions of the first third. of the 21st century ”. It could mark the start of a new round of enlargement to the east of the EU, as significant as the first major post-Cold War round of the 2000s, which in two waves occupied countries from Estonia to Bulgaria. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus notes again: “War is the father of all things.”
There are two good reasons for accepting Ukraine as a candidate for the EU: because Ukraine has won and because this is in the long-term strategic interest of all Europeans. The second is even more important than the first.
Ukraine’s aspiration to join the EU did not begin yesterday. I will never forget standing on an icy Maidan in Kyiv during the Orange Revolution in 2004, in the middle of a sea of European flags like I have never seen in any EU capital. Ten years later, the 2014 protests in Kyiv were sparked by President Viktor Yanukovych’s rejection of an association agreement with the EU, and these demonstrations were dubbed Euromaidan.
The war has confirmed this firm will of the Ukrainian nation. From the outset, Zelenskiy made the EU candidacy one of his top three petitions in the West, along with his urgent call for more weapons and sanctions. A recent opinion poll conducted in the western and central regions of Ukraine – polls were impossible in the east due to the war – found 89% support for EU membership.
Who can doubt that the Ukrainians have been fighting and dying for Europe? Explaining the commission’s positive recommendation, a senior Brussels official said: “The commission does not forget that Ukraine is the only country in Europe where people died, where they were shot because they were on the street with flags of the We can’t tell them now, “Sorry guys, you were waving the wrong flags.”
But this is also a strategic option for Europe as a whole. The problem is not just the second largest country in Europe. In addition to recommending that Ukraine be granted candidate status, “on the understanding that” certain specific measures will be taken, the commission proposes the same status for Moldova, which is between Ukraine and Romania, a member of the the EU, “in the understanding that” a little wider changes are being made. He also recommended the opening of accession negotiations for Albania and Northern Macedonia. Beyond that, there will be the rest of the Western Balkans, Georgia and potentially, someday, a democratic Belarus.
Treated correctly, this second major enlargement to the east would make the European Union not only larger but also more self-sufficient in food, stronger militarily and with more potential for economic growth. We Europeans would end up better able to defend our interests and values while sitting precariously between a revengeful Russia, a rising China, and a declining United States. This enlargement of the EU would also need to be further deepened, as otherwise a community of 35 member states would be dysfunctional. In the long run, the inclusion of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia would mean that Russia would finally have to reconcile itself with losing an empire and start looking for a role as a modern nation-state. (Britain shows how long this process can take.) So this second wave of enlargement from the east would be another big step towards a whole, free Europe.
However, there are many pitfalls along the way. Countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal are still trying to complicate, if not block, this first step. Even if, as it seems likely, the EU’s “big three” – with Mario Draghi’s Italy taking the place left by Britain – will prevail at next week’s EU summit, there will be political will. to sustain a long-term expansion strategy? The costs of reconstruction in Ukraine will be huge. War damage is already estimated at $ 150 billion (£ 122 billion). Ukraine has a chance to rebuild better, but only if substantial European funds for reconstruction are effectively linked to major reforms, including the fight against corruption.
There is currently popular support for this move within the EU: 66% of Europeans agreed to open the door to Ukraine in a Eurobarometer survey in April. An average of 57% of respondents in 10 selected European countries did so in a recent European Council on External Relations (ECFR) survey. But ECFR figures for France, Germany and Italy were just below 50%. As the tide of wartime sympathy with Ukraine subsides, and the whole of Europe is affected by the economic consequences of both the Covid pandemic and Vladimir Putin’s war, this support can be eroded. Mediterranean countries say, “You keep talking about the east, but what about the south?” Tough conditions in the Middle East and Africa, exacerbated by rising food prices due to a lack of grain exports from Ukraine and Russia, could lead to new crises there.
Another danger is that the expansion may continue without the necessary deepening. This was the great defect of the first enlargement to the east. The result: Viktor Orbán has torn down democracy in Hungary with the help of billions of euros in EU funds and, thanks to unanimous demands on these issues, has recently forced the rest of the EU to bail out a new round of sanctions on Russia.
Most likely, the momentum for enlargement would stop. Ukraine and Moldova could find themselves in the limbo that much of the Western Balkans has endured for nearly two decades. Northern Macedonia has waited 17 years, since 2005, to move from candidate status to real negotiations, thanks to the blockade first of Greece and then of Bulgaria. Macedonians have maintained their faith, but in Serbia support for EU membership has fallen from 70% to 37%. Local elites elsewhere could conclude that their best bet is to face Europe, China and Russia, as does Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. At that time, the eastern and south-eastern perimeter of the EU would be an unstable pulp, inviting the penetration of China, Russia and other hostile powers.
So the road ahead is full of obstacles and possible wrong turns. Yet, as the Chinese proverb says, a 10,000-mile journey begins with a single step. At least this first step goes in the right direction.