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EU leaders are traveling to Ukraine this week, but they will not promise the war-torn country will be able to join the bloc anytime soon.
Brussels is expected to throw cold water on Ukraine’s hopes of speedy EU accession during a two-day summit in Kyiv, according to a draft statement to be released at the event and submitted to POLITICO.
The statement doesn’t specifically mention the ambitious timetable that Ukraine has set out, with the country’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal even telling POLITICO this week that he hopes to join within two years. Instead, the document offers only vague assurances to move forward with the process once all of the EU-mandated milestones are met.
“The EU will decide on further steps once all the conditions set out in the Commission’s opinion have been fully met,” the draft reads. “Ukraine has underlined its determination to meet the necessary conditions to start accession negotiations as soon as possible.”
The wording follows significant resistance from some EU countries to pledge to Ukraine on its prospects for EU membership, an issue Kyiv said it was keen to raise at the summit, according to several EU diplomats and officials. Although EU leaders will not be present on Friday, officials from the European Council – which includes all 27 EU leaders – have been in touch with EU countries about the final communiqué.
EU leaders granted Ukraine formal candidate status in record time last June, but that move was far easier than rushing Ukraine through the grueling negotiations needed to bring a candidate country to Byzantine systems, rules and EU regulations. This process usually takes years and years and often stalls for long periods of time.
Still, EU countries are divided on how quickly the bloc should try to get Ukraine through this accession process.
“There were clear tensions between Poland and the Baltic States on the one hand and other EU countries over the language of EU accession,” said an EU official.
The official added that tensions between European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also feed into the debate.
“They are in a race where they outbid each other against the Ukrainians,” the official said.
Even if no breakthroughs are expected in the EU accession talks, there is a strong will in Brussels to show solidarity with Ukraine on other issues.
“The mere fact that we are holding a summit in a country at war” is significant in itself, a senior EU official said ahead of the meeting.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Indeed, a large gathering of senior EU leaders and commissioners is expected to travel to Kyiv this week for meetings with EU officials.
Progress is expected in certain areas – for example, an agreement on visa-free travel for industrial goods; the suspension of tariffs on Ukrainian exports for another year; Movement for Ukraine to join an EU payment system to facilitate bank transfers in euros; and integration of Ukraine into the area of free mobile roaming of the EU.
Also on the summit’s agenda are Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace plan, the reconstruction challenge facing Ukraine and food security issues, with the EU set to announce a new €25 million humanitarian aid package to tackle Russian mining in the country.
Another EU official said the summit “sends a strong signal that we support a country that has been the victim of aggression and we underscore Ukraine’s right to a just peace at the end of this war. Ukraine has been attacked, Ukraine has a right to self-defense that it exercises… and only that can be a basis for a just peace.”
path of reform
The document also stresses the need for “full and consistent implementation of judicial reforms” in line with the Venice Commission’s recommendations, noting in particular the need to reform Ukraine’s Constitutional Court.
Although Ukraine recently announced changes to the court, particularly in the appointment of judges, the Venice Commission – a prominent advisory body of constitutional lawyers – still has concerns about the powers and composition of the body that selects the court’s nominees.
Shmyhal told POLITICO this week that Ukraine will address these issues. Kyiv has been keen to signal that it is cracking down on corruption amid concerns in Washington and Brussels.
“We are holding consultations with the European Commission to ensure that any conclusions issued can be included in the text,” he said.