In Versailles, Thursday, the European Heads of State and Government, however, have granted to deepen the relationship with Kiev.
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Which signal send to Ukraine, who officially requested, on February 28, to enter the European Union (EU)? It is a subject on which the twenty-seven were very difficult to agree on Thursday, March 10, while they were gathered at Versailles. Finally, the Heads of State and European Government excluded the idea of a rapid membership of Ukraine, while opening the door to closer links. And this despite the insistent pressures of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelansky, who wanted to join “without delay” the community club and which, all the evening, implemented since Kiev his allies to engage more before.
“Can we open a membership procedure with a country at war? I do not believe it. Do we have to close the door and say ever? It would be unfair,” said Emmanuel Macron on arrival at Versailles. France, like many other countries, foremost in which Germany but also the Netherlands, does not imagine, at short maturity, that Kiev can join the EU.
“Welcome Ukraine, with 41 million inhabitants, is not a decision that takes a weekend,” says the Elysee. Before continuing: “It is not a membership procedure that will end the war.” For Moscow, on the other hand, it would probably be unbearable provocation, a red cloth that the Europeans have chosen not to brandish .
“There is no quick procedure”
They can still argue that Ukraine does not meet the criteria that are requested from a country that wishes to be part of the EU, whether in terms of standard of living, stability of institutions or democracy. And that, in this context, the accession procedure can only spread over years, as for any candidate. “Ukraine is very far from the account. And I do not understand why the Ukrainians attach as much importance about membership, which, anyway, is necessarily a very long process,” a diplomat of a diplomat of a Northern Pays.
“There is no quick procedure” to reach the EU, recalled Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. However, he continued, “We will reaffirm that we want to work intensively with Ukraine”. Europeans know that they need to send a message of support to Ukraine.
Classical argument, Paris, Berlin or The Hague argue that the EU can continue to open up to the East without prior modification of its operating rules. They are all the more refractory to an expansion to Ukraine that the Western Balkan countries have been typing at the EU door for years now and would not understand after Kiev. Applications of the other two oriental partnership countries, Moldova and Georgia, in the wake of Ukraine, do not facilitate things.
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