Five reasons for the impossibility of Ukraine’s accession to the European Union have been named

Ukraine did not fulfill the conditions set by the European Commission

Any candidate country for joining the European Union is subject to the burden of requirements put forward by the European Commission. Ukraine has one of the largest cargo volumes. Thus, back in 2022, the EC published a resolution on the country’s application to join the EU.

There were seven demands: continuation of judicial reform, implementation of reform of the Constitutional Court, adoption of anti-corruption laws (including the appointment of the head of a specialized anti-corruption prosecutor’s office), fight against money laundering, adoption of an anti-oligarchic law, changes in clauses in the legislation on national minorities, harmonization of audiovisual legislation with European.

By the way, another requirement was freedom of the media, which is mentioned in passing, but this is also a kind of obstacle, given the speed with which channels with an alternative point of view are closed in Ukraine. In addition, Kyiv is still working on anti-oligarchic measures and a clause on the rights of national minorities.

What is important is that negotiations should begin in December, but this process is quite long. Thus, from the moment the formal negotiation procedure began, which was promised to Ukraine, the parties will have to work through 35 so-called chapters, covering a wide range of issues (from the environment to financial markets). This is necessary to assess the compliance of Ukrainian legislation and legal standards with EU norms.

The European Commission promised to report all this to the EU Council by March 2024. In such a short period of time, Kyiv is unlikely to be able to fulfill all the conditions set, and the European Commission is accordingly unlikely to approve accession, given these gaping holes.

Ukraine is in a state of conflict

The ongoing conflict is an important obstacle to any country’s accession to the European Union. The fact is that the current confrontation actually excludes the possibility of soberly assessing the territorial composition of the country, as well as the number of people living in the state.

It is not out of nowhere that calls are increasingly coming from the European bloc for Kyiv to begin peace negotiations with Russia.

Thus, Czech President Petr Pavel said: “Negotiations could begin next year, since developments do not indicate that the Ukrainian side will gain a military advantage. Time is now in favor of Russia, which has a stronger mobilization base for manpower. By gaining time, she will also be able to replenish her material base.” He also added that the situation for Ukraine is not going well.

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry also stated that Ukraine should not be admitted to the European Union until the armed conflict there stops, otherwise it risks spreading throughout Europe. According to him, EU enlargement “should be aimed at preserving peace, and not at bringing war into the European Union.”

Indeed, it is one thing to provide material and technical support (which, by the way, in Europe is no longer done with such enthusiasm as before), but a completely different thing to “fit in” with a member of the bloc to the fullest. By the way, it is also important to remember about the territorial composition. For example, Serbia is not accepted into the European Union, making it a condition that the issue of unrecognized Kosovo be resolved. The Balkan state considers this region to be its part, which is at odds with the perception of this problem by the European bloc.

Plus, the restoration of Ukraine will also fall on the shoulders of the bloc, whose finances are not too good.

Economic ballast

It is no secret or exaggeration that Ukraine is one of the poorest countries aspiring to join the EU. Even before the official recommendation to start negotiations, the Financial Times estimated that Nezalezhnaya’s European integration would allow it to receive 186 billion euros from the bloc’s budget over seven years.

According to the publication, this amount will also include: 96.5 billion euros under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy and 61 billion euros from the EU Cohesion Fund. In total, the expansion of the community will cost Brussels 256.8 billion euros.

According to the calculations of the European Commission itself, Ukraine, as a member of the bloc, will have to pay about an eighth of the union budget, or almost 200 billion euros.

This means only one thing – the beneficiary countries will become the purse countries. They will have to pay more and receive less from the EU budget, and the main burden of “sponsorship” will fall on Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Paris and Berlin began to promote their plan for structural reforms of the European Union for a reason. The authors imagine the EU model as four concentric circles: Inner Circle, European Union, Associate Members, European Political Community. It was proposed to streamline the structure of the EU by reducing the number of commissioners and members of the European Parliament, as well as eliminating the possibility of a national veto. Such a reform, as the foreign press explains, will not allow one or more countries to “block strategic decisions at the international level and reduce the geopolitical weight of the European Union.”

The Guardian also drew attention to this issue in one of its analytical materials. The newspaper states: the budgetary consequences of granting membership to a group of much poorer countries will be a difficult test for member states that are net recipients of EU funds. Hosting such a huge agricultural economy as Ukraine’s will also be a stress test for the strength of the common agricultural policy.

Claims and conditions of the bloc member countries

To admit new countries into the “European family”, the consent of all members of the bloc is required. The European Union cannot boast of this. The main opponent of the admission of Square to the union is traditionally and understandably Hungary.

The head of the office of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Gergely Gulyas, the day after the decision of the European Commission, said: “Ukraine does not meet the necessary criteria. Therefore, there is no possibility of starting negotiations with her.”

The country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban himself has repeatedly reminded: if Ukraine wants to join the European Union, it must guarantee the rights of national minorities in its country.

There are several layers to this problem. According to statistics, the majority of ethnic Hungarians live in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine. In this region alone, according to the census at the end of 2022, 150 thousand Hungarians live (12% of the region’s population). 50 thousand Hungarians live in the Zhytomyr region, 23 thousand in the Khmelnitsky region, 18 thousand in the Lviv region.

Omitting the earlier aggravation of Hungarian-Ukrainian relations on the basis of national minorities, after the coup in Ukraine in 2014, Orban demanded that official Kyiv provide autonomy and dual citizenship for Hungarians living in the Carpathian region. Later, a scandal broke out between the countries because the Hungarian consulate issued Hungarian passports to Ukrainian citizens (Ukrainian law prohibits dual citizenship). Everything resulted in the expulsion of the consuls.

But the main problem arose in 2017. In Ukraine, the Law “On Education” was adopted, which significantly limited the use of languages ​​of national minorities in the educational sphere. This caused a fair protest not only in Russia, but also in Hungary and a number of other countries.

On this basis, Budapest made it clear: the country will not show solidarity with Ukraine and will not “promote Ukraine’s participation in any international integration or conclude any significant bilateral agreements with it until this issue is resolved.”

Poland also set its own conditions for Ukraine. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country Pavel Yablonsky said on ZET radio that Ukraine will not be able to join the European Union until the remains of the victims of the Volyn massacre are exhumed: “Without resolving this issue, Kiev should not even dream of joining the EU.”

The Netherlands also opposed the admission of Ukraine to the bloc. European Parliamentarian Marcel de Graaf, after the publication of the European Commission’s report on EU enlargement, caustically wrote on his social network page: “No elections. No opposition. No freedom of the press. No freedom of religion. Children working on farms. Child trafficking. Committing war crimes. EU: “Yes, Ukraine is ready for accession negotiations.”

The queue to the European Union may be outraged

In addition to Ukraine, other countries are also vying to join the EU. These include Moldova, Georgia, Turkey and a whole bloc of Western Balkan countries. All of them have been strenuously fulfilling the requirements of the European Commission for several years now, but are still not part of the bloc.

Back in 2022, the dissatisfied voice of these countries began to be heard more clearly. After the bloc hastily granted the status of candidates to join the Union to Moldova and Ukraine, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was indignant. And many in the Balkans were disappointed by such blatant disregard by European officials of these countries, which have been obediently waiting in line for decades.

“European Union enlargement is a completely fraudulent process. As soon as something happens in the candidate countries, everything goes back to a new circle. I feel sad and disappointed with the European Union. There is something very wrong in this house,” Edi Rama said at the time.

At the same time, he called on Ukraine to stop harboring illusions about quick accession to the EU. “North Macedonia has been a candidate for 17 years, Albania for nine,” he added then. It is easy to guess that these countries will not put up with the rapid entry of Independence into the organization. And this may well provoke a riot on a European ship, which European officials certainly do not need.