Foreign Minister Schallenberg recently felt misunderstood. According to Schallenberg, Ukraine’s accession to the EU would require a radical treaty change.
According to Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) consider radical treaty changes if they are serious about Ukraine’s membership and want to prevent the country from being succumbed to Russian superiority. Schallenberg told the “Financial Times” (Tuesday online edition) that the EU should grant neighboring countries such as Ukraine or the Republic of Moldova quick access to “parts of the common market”.
Schallenberg called for rethinking the EU accession process and said the EU should consider granting neighboring countries rapid access to “parts of the common market” and to selected EU institutions and programs, including participation, as a transition process towards full membership to formal decision-making bodies.
The EU can no longer afford to do things by halves to neighboring countries, he said Schallenberg. “There is no vacuum. It’s either our model or someone else’s,” said the foreign minister, referring to the future of countries bordering the EU, such as Ukraine and Moldova, which are currently threatened by Russian revanchism.
Schallenberg insists on equal treatment for the Western Balkans
Schallenberg feels misinterpreted when he was criticized for opposing Ukraine’s EU accession with reference to the EU enlargement candidates in the Western Balkans. However, he emphasized that the accession aspirations of Western Balkan countries such as Albania and North Macedonia, as well as Moldova, should be treated on an equal footing with Ukraine. “We need to anchor them all in Europe and in the West,” he said, calling for a change in the existing process to allow them to do so.
Russia’s war of aggression is a “geo-strategic moment” for Europe that requires a more fundamental response than sanctions and economic and military aid to Ukraine Schallenberg continue. “We have to pull ourselves together and put our words into action.”
Schallenberg urged Brussels “not to get bogged down in numbers, laws and details” when new states join, and instead to recognize that it must view the admission of new members as a necessity to combat malicious Russian influence. “Enlargement is not a legalistic, bureaucratic approach, it is a geostrategic instrument.” The possibility of the EU returning to the status quo with its neighbors, regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, is over, he said. The Eastern Partnership “is not working. It’s over,” he said Schallenberg. “We need to rethink the whole concept of the EU’s neighborhood policy.”
Edtstadler agrees with Schallenberg
Full EU membership for Ukraine is “a long process that you have to get used to, which will certainly not happen in the next few years,” said Europe Minister Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP) in an interview with the Austria Press Agency. The country’s accession to the EU “will not be achievable in the next five to ten years”, “some of the states in the Western Balkans have been waiting for the next step for decades,” said Edtstadler. There can be no fast-track procedure for Ukraine.
She was in agreement with Foreign Minister Schallenberg, said the Europe Minister. “What the Foreign Minister also wanted to address is that you might have to be creative about how to bring Ukraine closer to Western values,” said Edtstadler. “What Ukraine obviously heard was a no to EU membership, which wasn’t meant that way and isn’t Austria’s position either.”
Edtstadler showed understanding for the arms deliveries from Western countries to Kyiv. “If there were no support for Ukraine here with arms deliveries, then Ukraine would no longer exist. And then the next border would come, and it would possibly be the next target of (Russian President Vladimir, ed.) Putin in his sights. That’s why it is from Europe’s point of view necessary to support with arms deliveries. For Austria it is simply not compatible due to neutrality to deliver arms.”
(APA)