The ongoing war in Ukraine puts the European Union to the test of several challenges that can be studied in the HGGSP program in first class, in particular the concluding axis of theme 3 on borders: “The internal and external borders of Europe”.
For the moment, the European Union has managed to speak with a strong and united voice to condemn and sanction Russia, notes this article fromThe Sheet :
The invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin has just made the European Union a geopolitical power ex abrupto.
To sanction Russia, member states quickly took a number of measures, listed by the Italian daily: “Restrictive measures against Russian banks, financial centres, air links and oligarchs, direct arms deliveries to Ukraine, provisional protection status for refugees fleeing the war, international diplomatic initiatives aimed at condemning Putin to United Nations General Assembly.”
A historic decision
A reactivity which contrasts with the blockages to which the Europe of the Twenty-Seven had accustomed us, underlines The Sheet :
The EU suddenly left their hesitations in the locker room.”
A European first – and not important towards a common defense policy – the Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-Seven have agreed to supply arms to the Ukrainian army, up to 450 million euros. “A taboo has fallen”, recognized Josep Borrell, the head of diplomacy of the European Union.
This controversy published in the Czech business daily Hospodárské Noviny reflects the divisions within the editorial staff on the question of whether or not Ukraine should join the European Union. On 28th February the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in fact asked that his country be allowed to join the Union.
Journalist Katerina Safarikova is in favor of Ukraine’s integration into the EU. “Recent polls have shown that a majority of the population in the east of the country also consider themselves Ukrainian, not Russian, and want to join the EU,” she specifies.
The defense of European ideals
She recalls that “several political leaders have come out in favor of a special procedure that would allow Ukraine to obtain EU candidate status” and that European public opinion admires the resistance of the Ukrainians. This country is “ready to defend with arms a free continent and its ideals”, highlighted the journalist, who concludes:
To live in a safer world, it is in the interest of the EU to accept Ukraine into its membership.”
His colleague Ondrej Houska thinks, on the contrary, that Ukraine’s membership would be a terrible mistake:
This would weaken and divide the Union, an essential instrument for cooperation, prosperity and stability in Europe, and would accentuate its inability to act. It is not in the interests of any of its members. No more than in that of Ukraine.”
According to the journalist, Ukraine has neither stable institutions nor a level of development that would allow it to integrate into the EU. He denounces “its high level of corruption, its backward economy, its network of powerful oligarchs and its chaotic politics”.
But it is above all the territorial tensions with Russia that make Ukraine’s candidacy utopian in the eyes of Ondrej Houska, who ends by writing:
The States of Western Europe are tired of this enlargement to the East. Ukrainians are heroes. But being a hero is not part of the membership criteria.”
This article from the Croatian daily Jutarnji List also returns to the reasons which make it impossible for Ukraine to join the Europe of Twenty-Seven.
If Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, left a glimmer of hope as European leaders gathered in Versailles on March 10 and 11 to decide on the fate of Ukraine, a rapid accession is unlikely.
A frozen enlargement
“For years the enlargement process has not been a priority”, recalls the article, which cites countries that have been waiting for a long time to be able to join the European Union, such as North Macedonia, Albania and Serbia. Its author says:
The European Union was flattered by the fact that these countries asked to join it, without making any political commitment to them.”
Perhaps for the Ukrainians there remains the hope of a “light membership” (a privileged partnership not involving full membership), a formula long defended by Emmanuel Macron. The wave of solidarity which appears in Europe could certainly push the leaders of Europe to make a gesture in this direction.