The EU will formally add Ukraine to its list of candidate countries this Friday. But if you look carefully beneath the pomp, you will see this is much less of a big deal than Brussels would have you believe.
For one thing, the gesture is symbolic. The list of official EU candidates is a bit like the waiting list for a smart London club. Being on it may be flattering, but it does not guarantee a quick decision; nor does it rule out the possibility of one or more black balls if and when your name eventually comes up.
Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are all current candidates on the list. All are respectable nations, but don’t hold your breath as regards an early admission for any of them. The formal inscription of Ukraine on this list looks more like a public relations exercise by Brussels, which is desperate to show its support for a good cause, than a serious commitment to anything much further.
Secondly, if you think all this demonstrates some kind of EU solidarity in support of Ukraine, think again: it doesn’t. European unity here is almost entirely superficial, limited in practice to uncontroversial matters like calling out Russian atrocities, piously denouncing Russia as the antithesis of democratic European values, and intoning ‘slava Ukraini’ from a safe distance. Whatever the view in places like Poland or Lithuania, a European think-tank last week found large majorities in many European countries, notably Germany and Italy but also France and Sweden, favouring ‘peace’ over ‘justice’. Put bluntly, this means standing aside and leaving Ukraine to negotiate the best terms possible with Vladimir Putin.
There is no more unity on Ukraine’s eventual EU admission.
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