Po začetku vojne v Ukrajini so zahodni politiki Ukrajini velikodušno obljubljali članstvo v Natu in EU. Realnost pa je bila – iz objektivnih razlogov – manj prijazna. Glede članstva v Natu je Ukrajina naletela na tipični Catch 22. Članstvo v Natu ni možno, dokler traja vojna, ker članice Nata nočejo biti prisiljene v aktivacijo člena 5 in vključitev v neposredno vojno z Rusijo. Po koncu vojne pa članstvo v Natu tudi ne bo možno, ker Ukrajina te vojne brez aktivne vključitve članic Nata ne more zmagati, zato bo Rusija kot zmagovalka postavljala pogoje in nečlanstvo v Natu bo prvi pogoj Rusije v mirovnem sporazumu, saj je zaradi tega sploh začela z vojno.

Glede članstva v EU, ki bi bilo po mojem mnenju pozitivno za EU, saj bi se s tem izboljšala avtonomija EU na mnogih področjih – od hrane, energije do nekaterih ključnih surovin, pa je zgodba enako kruta. Po eni strani je Ukrajina preveč kmetijska država in z njeno vključitvijo bi zaradi povečane konkurence cene hrane v EU močno padle, kar bi prizadelo ostale države, predvsem vzhodnoevropske in Francijo. Ukrajina še niti ni postala članica EU, pa je že poškodovala skupni trg, zaradi česar so vzhodnoevropske države serijsko blokirale uvoz žita iz Ukrajine.

Drugi problem je finančne narave. Ukrajinski kmetje bi po vstopu v EU posrkali večino kmetijskih subvencij in Francija bi glede skupne kmetijske politike nenadoma postala neto plačnica v EU proračun. In naprej, ker bi bila Ukrajina daleč najmanj razvita članica EU, bi posrkala tudi levji delež sredstev za kohezijo. Namesto Poljske bi Ukrajina postala največja prejemnica EU sredstev. Vstop Ukrajine v EU bi torej zahteval bodisi povečanje vplačil v proračun EU ali zmanjšanje EU sredstev za večino držav.

To so pač objektivni razlogi, zakaj Ukrajina v previdljivi prihodnosti ne more postati članica EU. Seveda ji ostale članice in Evropska komisija tega ne morejo naravnost povedati, zato se bodo skrivali za formalizmi. Za reformami, ki bi jih Ukrajina morala narediti pred vstopom, za vladavino prava, za potrebnim zmanjšanjem korupcije, in za reformami delovanja EU, ki bi jih članice  morale narediti pred tem itd. Več o tem v spodnjem članku.

While EU leaders talk of Ukraine being on “a path” to membership, many member state officials and diplomats privately question whether it will really happen.

Not only is Ukraine a country at war, but it would be the bloc’s fifth largest member by pre-conflict population and its poorest by far, which has implications for how its budgets would be divided up. Yet it is also Kyiv’s bid, more than any other, that has raised profound questions about the future of the entire European project.

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This issue of absorption capacity boils down to two key topics. First, how would the EU reform its budget when faced with new members that would probably be net beneficiaries of EU funding? How would less rich member states respond to the idea of becoming net contributors?

A second question is: what institutional reforms would be necessary to ensure the EU could ensure smooth decision-making processes if the union comprises as many as 35 capitals, up from the current 27. A failure to overhaul its procedures could hobble the EU, particularly in policy areas that require unanimity.

Ukraine’s membership would weigh most heavily on the EU’s finances. As an internal Council of the EU note seen by the FT highlights, the two biggest areas of the EU budget are the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and cohesion, or regional spending, which together account for around 62 per cent of the EU’s seven-year budget or around €370bn each.

Admitting Ukraine, with farmland that exceeds the size of Italy and an agricultural sector that employs 14 per cent of its population, would be a game-changer. It follows that Ukraine would become the biggest recipient of CAP funding, the majority of which comprises direct payments to farmers or income support.

The consequences would be severe: other farmers in the union would have to accept much lower payments or the EU would need to agree a massive boost in its agricultural budget.

In France, where the farming sector has huge clout, the political consequences would be daunting. The same applies to countries that have been prominent cheerleaders for Ukrainian accession. Poland, for example, whose president Andrzej Duda in 2022 called for Ukraine to benefit from a fast-track membership process, went on to ban some Ukrainian agricultural imports a year later. Warsaw took action after a glut of cheap grain provoked vociferous protests by its farmers, and demanded the commission expand those curbs into other products this summer.V

“Ukraine has not even entered the EU yet, and already it has damaged the single market,” notes a second EU diplomat.

When it comes to regional funding, a note prepared by the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics think-tank for the pre-summit breakfast meeting laid out the high stakes. The majority of the current accession candidates, including Ukraine, have a GDP per capita, measured by purchasing power parity, that is below Bulgaria, the EU member with the lowest income.

“The logic of cohesion policy is that funds would need to be retargeted at the union’s new members, to the disadvantage of current beneficiaries, unless more EU revenues were to be raised,” the policy paper notes. In other words: “Either the pie grows, or each gets a smaller slice.”

Western capitals are keen to draft concrete financial impact studies in time for the October summit so they can make clear to all member states the tangible impact on their current budgets.

Calculating exactly what Ukraine’s entitlement would be is impossible given the uncertainties about the shape of its postwar economy after the conflict finally ends. But if Ukraine was plugged into the current 2021-27 cohesion budget, it would jump to the top of the list of recipients, dwarfing Poland’s €77bn allocation, calculates Zsolt Darvas at the Bruegel think-tank.

Another informal estimate prepared by the EU Council suggests that Ukraine’s entry would make France a net payer into the CAP, and Poland would swing from the largest net recipient of EU funds to an overall net payer.

“If you’re in an office at the top of the commission, you can either double the EU budget or make everyone swallow sacrifices,” says the second diplomat, adding that the EU’s own research, if made public, would make for sober reading and highlight how painful the decisions ahead will be.

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In addition, big states accustomed to readily assembling blocking minorities on votes — where EU rules permit so-called qualified majority decision-making — would find it more challenging to assemble large-enough coalitions of like-minded member states.

The idea of fundamental reforms to EU decision-making raises the prospect of whether treaty change would be needed to accommodate an expanded membership. But diplomats perceive little support for reforming the treaty in most capitals, given fears this would open a Pandora’s box of additional demands.

“There is zero appetite in most member states to do the reforms via treaty change. And, in fact, quite a lot can be achieved without any treaty change being needed,” says van Middelaar.

The Brussels Institute for Geopolitics argues that the existing EU treaty already offers pathways to significant changes to governance. For example, no amendments would be required to reduce the number of commissioners from one per member state to two-thirds. The so-called passerelle clause permits vetoes to be bypassed in some cases.

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For the EU, the accession of Poland and Hungary, who remain in entrenched stand-offs with the commission over their compliance with legal standards, has been a scarring experience.

As one EU diplomat observes, some existing capitals will insist on seeing extremely robust safeguards in new member states to protect the rule of law and judicial independence. Steps to strengthen enforcement of single market rules would also be required, the diplomat warns.

Further questions surround the timelines under which existing member states would agree to open themselves up to freedom of movement from new members. Then, of course, are the security implications of absorbing a country like Ukraine, with its conflict with Russia, as well as Balkan countries that remain hotbeds of ethnic tension.

“We saw such a backsliding in Poland and Hungary. And this means that we are now applying much stricter laws for the accession countries when it comes to the rule of law, checks and balances, system, independence of judiciary, anti-corruption measures and media,” says Věra Jourová, the EU’s commissioner for values, adding that accession talk are far more demanding than they used to be.

For now, even as the EU starts work on what might be required to make it happen, Ukraine’s membership remains hypothetical. While visiting Kyiv in May, commission president Ursula von der Leyen, admitted that “some might think it is impossible, improbable or too distant to talk about a free and peaceful Ukraine in the European Union.” But, she added, “Europe is about making the impossible possible.”

Some diplomats do not share her optimism, and have doubts whether it will ever come to fruition. Privately, they refer to the prospect as an “if” not a “when”.

Still, EU officials consistently emphasise the strikingly rapid progress Ukraine is managing under president Zelenskyy, meaning that many see an increasing likelihood that it will gain the green light for accession talks before the end of the year. “They are doing a pretty remarkable job in wartime conditions,” says a third EU diplomat. “There will be an awful lot of internal work to ensure we have our own house in order.”

The reality, stress some officials, is that accession would likely be a drawn-out process, with candidates being granted progressive sectoral integration over time, gently easing them towards membership.

Vir: Financial Times