{"id":8625,"date":"2026-04-04T10:20:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T10:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/8625\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T10:20:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T10:20:32","slug":"we-should-pick-up-the-pace-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/8625\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We should pick up the pace\u2019 \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At a dinner last week attended by the European Commission president\u2019s chief of staff, Bjoern Seibert, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/newsletter\/brussels-playbook\/back-to-the-drawing-board-for-ukraines-eu-hopes\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/newsletter\/brussels-playbook\/back-to-the-drawing-board-for-ukraines-eu-hopes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">EU ambassadors rejected<\/a> the possibility of allowing in new members with limited privileges.<\/p>\n<p>Kallas\u2019 words offer heavyweight backing to the idea that enlargement isn\u2019t simply a bureaucratic process by which candidates fulfill EU criteria but a geopolitical choice \u2014 as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has suggested.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEnlargement has been described as the union\u2019s most successful foreign policy, extending the area of stability, peace and prosperity,\u201d Kallas said, citing <a href=\"https:\/\/europa.eu\/eurobarometer\/surveys\/detail\/3413\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/europa.eu\/eurobarometer\/surveys\/detail\/3413\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Eurobarometer<\/a> data showing wide support for expanding the 27-member bloc.<\/p>\n<p>But, she added, \u201cit is up to us to keep telling the enlargement story.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>A senior EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak freely, said countries would do their best to keep the\u00a0bloc\u2019s\u00a0enlargement process on track, despite the differences between the Council and the Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Work is now underway to make the next three presidencies of the Council of the EU focus on bringing in new member countries, with an eye to finishing Ukraine\u2019s negotiations by the end of 2027, even if an accession treaty might take longer to complete.<\/p>\n<p>The prospect of a public debate about Ukraine\u2019s membership is worrying to some EU leaders, who fear it could give ammunition to far-right parties ahead of elections in France, Finland and other countries next year. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou need to have a political narrative on Ukraine,\u201d the senior EU diplomat said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a dinner last week attended by the European Commission president\u2019s chief of staff, Bjoern Seibert, EU ambassadors&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[8102,2421,1065,242,4569,2058,1490,245,1857,442,8103,1432,2046,330,403],"class_list":{"0":"post-8625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kaja-kallas","8":"tag-ammunition","9":"tag-data","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-emmanuel-macron","12":"tag-enlargement","13":"tag-finland","14":"tag-foreign-policy","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-history","17":"tag-kaja-kallas","18":"tag-montenegro","19":"tag-negotiations","20":"tag-stability","21":"tag-ukraine","22":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116345937841420552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}