{"id":1028544,"date":"2026-06-15T18:06:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T18:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1028544\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T18:06:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T18:06:36","slug":"the-eu-would-pay-a-high-price-if-it-lets-down-ukraine-on-membership-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1028544\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU would pay a high price if it lets down Ukraine on membership \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first set of accession talks with officials from Ukraine and Moldova were opened on Monday (15 June), the European Commission announced<\/a> triumphantly. The talks are aimed at\u00a0harmonising\u00a0the two candidate countries\u2019 legal\u00a0frameworks\u00a0with the EU acquis and are a major step towards them joining the EU.<\/p>\n

But few expect these negotiations to move quickly. <\/p>\n

Instead, the truth is that many EU countries are still deeply ambivalent about more countries joining the bloc.<\/p>\n

Many commission officials now accept that Romania and Bulgaria, and several of the other 2004 members, were not ready for accession when they joined. But\u00a0enlargement, like\u00a0including Greece and Italy in the first round of euro currency members, was about politics, particularly the accession of the former Soviet bloc countries\u00a0who have since received tens of billions of euros as part of the EU\u2019s cohesion policy to reduce the economic disparities within the bloc. <\/p>\n

The price for that political symbolism has already been paid by Croatia \u2013 only allowed to join in\u00a02013 despite being more ready for membership than several of the 2004 and 2007 cohort.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now it could be paid by Ukraine\u2019s president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is pushing for EU accession next year\u00a0as one of the prizes for his people\u2019s bravery in resisting Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n

But the\u00a0chances of this happening are slim to none.\u00a0The accession process is painfully slow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0question is whether setting up the EU to fail Ukraine, or anybody else for that matter, is\u00a0smart politics for anyone?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some politicians are,\u00a0at\u00a0least,\u00a0being\u00a0honest about this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Merz\u2019s compromise<\/p>\n

Last month, German chancellor Friedrich Merz mooted the idea<\/a> of \u201cassociate\u201d membership that would give\u00a0Ukraine, and others, access to some EU\u00a0programmes, and members of the EU Parliament and Commission, albeit without voting rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Opening up\u00a0EU\u00a0programmes\u00a0to Ukraine would, Merz argued, serve as a testing-period for the country\u2019s implementation and enforcement before it became a full member.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEnlargement of the European Union is a geopolitical necessity. However, the enlargement process takes much too long. Understandably, this creates frustration among the candidate countries \u2013\u00a0and also\u00a0among the member states,\u201d said Merz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Merz plan\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0fly<\/a>.\u00a0Nor did an attempt by the commission\u00a0to re-open the accession process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the table\u00a0from the commission\u00a0<\/a>was a \u2018gradual integration\u2019 process that would allow candidate countries to\u00a0would gain\u00a0access to selected EU\u00a0programmes\u00a0and policy areas without formally joining the bloc.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other\u00a0option\u00a0proposed was for \u2018phased\u00a0integration\u2019,\u00a0giving candidate countries full EU membership from the outset, with\u00a0the implementation of required reforms deferred until after accession.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u2018associate\u2019 model could easily apply to other countries besides Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The British exemption?<\/p>\n

It is already easy to see a clear path for the UK towards\u00a0de facto\u00a0\u2018associate\u2019 membership. The UK is already committed to paying around\u00a0\u20ac2.8bn per year\u00a0into the EU budget in exchange for membership of Erasmus and Horizon Europe on top of the\u00a0\u20ac766m\u00a0it is paying France to\u00a0assist\u00a0with migration control in the Channel. Joining the\u00a0defence\u00a0procurement\u00a0programme\u00a0SAFE, if EU and UK officials can ever agree on a price tag, would\u00a0likely also\u00a0cost hundreds of millions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

EU leaders have always been\u00a0rather sniffy\u00a0about the idea of \u2018associate\u2019 members \u2013 or, indeed, anything that looks like membership a la carte.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in practice, the \u2018membership-first, integration-later\u2019 model has already been\u00a0used for several of the 2004 and 2007 members.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the\u00a0status quo appears designed to frustrate\u00a0potential new members and\u00a0rob\u00a0the EU of the flexibility needed to be a geopolitical player.\u00a0<\/p>\n

None of the Western Balkan countries is likely to become EU members any time soon. Nor, in truth, are Ukraine and Moldova.\u00a0And the price of promising them the world only to let them down in a couple of\u00a0years\u2019 time\u00a0would be high.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first set of accession talks with officials from Ukraine and Moldova were opened on Monday (15 June),…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1028545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,218484,245341,275535,275538,275533,245339,275536,218482,275534,245340,275537,218483],"class_list":["post-1028544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-identifier24","tag-identifier4599","tag-identifier4687","tag-identifier4703","tag-nameenlargement","tag-nameeuobserver-voice","tag-namemoldova","tag-nameukraine","tag-termcodeenlargement","tag-termcodeeuobserver-voice","tag-termcodemoldova","tag-termcodeukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116755458314378192","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1028545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}