This is a sentimental appeal: in early March, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zhelensky called for permission to join the European Union, the world’s largest trade body, which has helped keep the peace in Europe for decades.
“At least we’ve proven we’re just like you,” he told the European Parliament. “So prove that you are with us, prove that you will not leave us, prove that you are truly European.”
On Friday, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, approved his request when he suggested that Ukraine should be granted candidate status in the country’s bid to become a member of the committee.
However, Mr. Zhelensky’s EU aspirations are unlikely to be satisfied at any time: joining the group is a difficult and arduous process that can take up to a decade. For example, Poland made a formal request to join the camp in 1994 and was not allowed until 2004.
If a country wants to join, its candidature must be approved by all EU member states, which now ranks 27th. It must comply with its constitution, judiciary and economy by adopting EU common law. More than 80,000 pages of rules and regulations on matters such as environmental standards and food hygiene rules.
There are precedents for quick-tracking auctions – Sweden and Finland were able to join the union within a few years of applying – and a quick approach is rare. Moreover, other countries, including Albania, Bosnia and Serbia, have been waiting years to join, making it difficult for the EU to move fast in Ukraine.
Beyond that, after being shaken by the economic crisis, Brexit and the epidemic and its aftermath, the Confederacy also has the magnitude of expansion fatigue. Member states violating the rules, such as Hungary.
Ukraine is already on the verge of getting closer to Europe and has a union agreement with the European Union, signed in 2014 and concluded in 2017, which agreed to intensify economic and political relations with the camp.
The Ukrainians wanted to establish closer ties with Europe, with hundreds of thousands of them in 2013 They took to the streets and protested Victor F. Kennedy, then president; Yanukovych sided with Russia and withdrew from signing a union agreement with the union.
Whatever the challenges to Ukraine’s EU confidence, it has created an expression of unity in Russia’s war camp, attracting some. Strict restrictions In its history. The Eastern and Central European countries of Poland and the Baltic countries, which have lived for decades behind the Iron Curtain, have deep memories of Russian subjugation and are very keen to support members of Ukraine.
While most of the 10 former communist countries acknowledged – including the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland – most Europeans welcomed the union’s expansion eastward in May 2004 because, among other things, it confirmed the destruction of the Soviet camp and helped spread economic and political liberalism. Across the continent.
The ability to extend EU membership to countries in the post-Cold War world is one of its biggest foreign policy tools. The opportunity to join Bulgaria and Romania sought to combat corruption and expedite the arrest of war criminals in Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.
Although Ukraine’s EU membership process may be gradual and face significant challenges, the country’s effort to forge closer ties with NATO and the EU has led President Vladimir V to bring Ukraine back into Russian orbit. The opposite effect.
