YES / Ukraine is Europe!
By Jean-Maurice Ripert, Ambassador of France, was notably posted in Russia and China.
We must hear Ukrainians’ calls for help. We need to significantly increase the economic, financial and humanitarian support we provide them. But we must also support them politically and in the long term, by welcoming them into the European Union, as President Zelensky has requested.
Admittedly, Ukraine today is devastated by war, but it is not at war, it is the victim of an aggression which it is resisting with incredible courage. Let us remember that in 2003 Europe welcomed the Republic of Cyprus, whose territory had however been partially occupied since 1974 by the Turkish army. At the same time, a large part of the countries of the “other Europe” joined us. Their economies were not ready, their democracies in their infancy. Today, they are essential European partners, united in the same desire to defend our acquis against totalitarian regimes.
The Ukrainians’ European commitment is indisputable, they proved it in 2014: the “orange revolution” and then the events in Maidan Square attest to it. The people took to the streets en masse to drive out a president who, bowing to pressure from Moscow, had given up on seeking EU membership.
Ukraine’s concrete accession process will take time. But opening this process today, by recognizing that the Ukrainians already respect European democratic values and universal human rights, is to recognize their right to exist that Vladimir Putin denies them.
Let’s open the European Union to Ukraine. Now. Their future is at stake, but also ours: if we close the door to them at one of the most serious moments in their history, in the face of an unjustifiable, illegal, murderous aggression, we will not be worthy of ours.
NO / Offering immediate membership is demagogic
Pierre Lellouche was Secretary of State, in charge of European Affairs, then Foreign Trade.
It is perfectly understandable that Ukrainian President Zelensky sought to obtain his country’s membership in NATO or its immediate entry into the EU, by means of an “emergency procedure”…
The reason for which the Ukrainians seek to integrate the EU quickly is that the treaties provide for a clause of mutual defense which is exercised within the framework of NATO. In other words, if the NATO door is closed, they try their luck through the EU window. Of course, Zelensky knows that no European state will declare war on Russia, but his request aims to force the Europeans to show their solidarity.
On the other hand, the President of the European Commission, Ursula van der Leyen, by instantly proclaiming her support for Ukraine’s accession before the European Parliament, is playing a score as hypocritical as it is demagogic.
Europe’s new self-proclaimed warlord knows she has no defense skills, but that doesn’t stop her from promising to deliver arms paid for by the EU. As it knows that there is no “emergency procedure” in terms of accession, and that on the contrary the decision on the simple candidacy of a third State can only be taken unanimously represented in the European Council.
She also knows that the membership process is extremely slow and technical. Finally, she knows that the very degraded economic situation of the country (even before the war), the endemic corruption of its political class have precisely blocked this candidacy for many years, in addition to the open hostility of Russia and the war in the Donbass for eight years (the EU prohibits entry to countries at war).
The place of Ukraine in relation to the EU, a central geopolitical question, will therefore be settled by an overall negotiation on the status of this country, after this atrocious war.