EU membership obstacles for Ukraine, Moldova

The European Commission has never been so quick to recommend candidate status for a prospective member. It did so in record time on Friday for both Ukraine and Moldova. For the moment, Georgia has been told to wait.

All three countries applied for EU membership just days after Russia launched its February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Three-and-a-half months later, the European Commission completed its first inspection of thousands of pages of documents and recommended the European Council of 27 EU member states award "candidate status" to Ukraine and Moldova.

The Council will have the opportunity to unanimously confirm this important first step at its next summit on June 23-24. After the leaders of Europe's three largest member states — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi — spoke out in support of Ukraine yesterday in Kyiv, there is little doubt that the Council will not take that step.

Ukraine already well-advanced

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Ukraine has clearly demonstrated that it respects European values and desires to live by its standards. The war shows that "Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective," she said. "Now, Ukraine holds its future in its own hands."

The EU chief praised Ukraine's robust democracy and its efficient administrative system, which has continued to function even under the strain of the Russian invasion. Over the past several years, Ukraine has adopted more than 70% of all EU rules.

Will the Ukraine war speed up the membership process?

Prior applicants have had to wait years before receiving candidate status. Yet this time around the process seems to be moving at the speed of light as Russia's war against Ukraine has dramatically altered the geopolitical situation. Moldova and Georgia, feeling threatened by Russia themselves, are also seeking shelter in the European Union.

Georgia, however, has not yet fulfilled Western criteria for candidacy — such as having a stable democracy — in the eyes of the European Commission.

"The war in Ukraine has changed the European approach to enlargement," says Pierre Marcos, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. "What was long seen as a purely technical step in the enlargement process is now being viewed as a geopolitical tool that demands a strategic approach."

No fast track for Ukraine and Moldova

Nevertheless, the immediate membership that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for in the wake of Russia's invasion is not going to happen. EU contract agreements stipulate a complicated process. Candidates must fulfill a series of criteria regarding political systems, rule of law and compliance with comprehensive EU rules.

So far, Finland has been the quickest to complete the process, doing so in just three years. Turkey, for instance, has been in negotiations since 2005, with no concrete results to date as its slide to authoritarianism has meant that it has failed to complete even one of the many steps on the road to membership.

French President Emmanuel Macron, just weeks ago, preemptively warned that negotiations with Ukraine could take years, if not decades. Instead, Macron has suggested Kyiv could be offered a pepped-up political partnership with the bloc as an interim solution.

No EU membership before the war is over

Experience has shown that a number of hindrances and concerns can pop up during the accession process. More than anything, the EU is seeking to avoid repeating past mistakes: In 2004, the bloc extended membership to the Mediterranean island state of Cyprus, even though the country's north remained illegally occupied by Turkey. The conflict was thus imported into the EU and remains unresolved to this day. Therefore, actual membership is a distant prospect, for both Ukraine and Moldova have unresolved territorial disputes with Russia or Russian-backed separatists.

Current rules dictate that the conflicts in the Donbas and Crimea (Ukraine) as well as Trans-Dniester (Moldova) be resolved before either can attain membership.

EU officials have also been gaming out the financial challenges that each candidacy would bring. Membership for Ukraine, which is relatively poor compared to the rest of the EU, would have far-reaching consequences for today's recipient states in Central Europe. The bloc's system of agricultural subsidies would also have to be thoroughly restructured as Ukraine would enter the bloc as the state with the largest area of arable land in the EU. But that, too, is pie in the sky, and won't be relevant for decades.

This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton.