Tomorrow the European Commission (EC) will announce advice to make Ukraine a candidate for membership of the European Union. Subsequently, the heads of government of the EU member states will have to pronounce on that candidacy next week.
For a long time, the Netherlands was opposed, mainly because of the proven corruption in Ukraine, but Minister Wopke Hoekstra has been more lenient lately. Hoekstra promises an open mind. “It is up to the European Commission to come up with a sensible judgment. Then you must be prepared to look at it openly as the Netherlands,” he said in a statement. news hour.
Offering candidate status in this time of war sends a geo-political signal, says Wouter Zweers, expert at the Clingendael Institute on EU enlargement policy. “A message to Russia: we do not accept that you try to determine the future of an independent country through a military invasion.” He also expects Ukraine to be stronger in negotiations with a candidate for membership as the war draws to a close.
Acknowledgment
In addition to the Netherlands, more countries that had previously opposed it are opening the door to the waiting room for Ukraine. Germany is now also supporting the application. “The country is part of the European family,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during his visit to Kiev this afternoon. Furthermore, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Romanian President Klaus Johannis President Volodymyr Zelensky today personally expressed their support for the candidate for membership.
But even if Ukraine is admitted into the waiting room, it will take years of negotiations before the country can really become a member.
Currently, five countries have been waiting for membership for a long time: Turkey since 1999, North Macedonia since 2005, Montenegro since 2010, Serbia since 2012, and Albania since 2014. “When you make a country candidate, it is a political decision. are not hard legal requirements. In practice, people look ahead and so there is a certain recognition. Candidate membership is a political and technical analysis that the country is ready to enter the waiting room,” says Zweers.
Costs and benefits
How is it possible that countries have to wait so long? Zweers: “Sometimes the EU is too positive with countries that are not reforming, or too negative with countries that are reforming. And then the will to reform further is undermined, so the process comes to a halt.”
According to the expert, the Netherlands is mainly inclined to look at the costs and benefits. “Within the EU we often think in those terms, and there is less sense that there is a European project, to which we attach enormous political significance. Ultimately it is a cost-benefit analysis for everyone, but some Eastern European Member States experience the threat from Russia so strongly, they also see it as a moral obligation to help Ukraine.”
He thinks it is sensible for the EU to support the aspirations of the government and people in Ukraine. “By openly providing perspective and rewarding reforms. The accession process also offers the EU opportunities to drive reforms.”
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