HS interview | “The promise of EU membership gives Ukrainians hope,” says the head of the EU delegation in Kyiv

In the year 2012 The European Union received the Nobel Peace Prize because, according to the Nobel Committee, it had transformed Europe from “a continent of war to a continent of peace”. At that time, more than sixty years of peace had passed in Europe.

Ten years later, the war has returned to Europe and right at the gates of the EU.

The war was sparked by Russia, which illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula and began supporting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Finally, in February 2022, Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. At the same time, Ukraine’s journey towards possible EU membership became a question of the fate of Europe as a whole.

An Estonian diplomat is working on the question of its fate Matti Maasikas works daily.

Strawberry sits in the premises of the European Commission’s representation in Finland in Kamppi. On his chest he has a brilliant bow in the blue and yellow colors of Ukraine.

Since 2019, Maasikas has led the European Union’s representation in Kyiv. The soon-to-end season has been “very different” even by the standards of an experienced diplomat.

When Russia launched its full-scale attack in February of last year, Ukraine quickly turned on a new gear in its EU relations.

“Ukraine’s membership process started very dramatically on the 5th day of the war,” Maasikas says. President Volodymyr Zelenskyi announced at the time that Ukraine would apply for membership in the European Union.

Already in June, Ukraine received the status of a candidate country.

Ukraine has proven that it is able to promote the development of the rule of law and tackle corruption even in the conditions of war, says Maasikas. They are a condition of membership.

“One of the miracles in Ukraine during a full-scale war is that the country’s administration and state function,” says Maasikas.

The fact that Ukraine has brought it up, for example corruption cases of the Ministry of Defense, in the diplomat’s opinion, shows the strength of Ukrainian society. In recent weeks, more cases have become public: for example, the president of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Knyazyev was arrested on suspicion of bribery only a few days ago.

Read more: The luxurious life of civil servants and food bought for the ministry at double the price revealed again that corruption remains in Ukraine

The next step in Ukraine’s EU journey is the start of membership negotiations. The hope is that the negotiations could start at the end of the year, says Maasikas.

“The EU’s candidate status and the promise of membership give hope to Ukrainians every day, including those on the front lines. The EU symbolizes hope.”

One one of the most important lessons that can be learned from the EU’s previous rounds of enlargement is the importance of motivation. It should be found in both the EU and the applicant country, Maasikas sums up.

When Estonia applied for membership, both the applicant countries and the EU were very motivated. Estonia received help, advice and financial support to implement the new requirements.

“For us in the 1990s, there was a feeling that we were on the right side of history and that we were uniting the entire continent,” Maasikas recalls.

In the countries of the Western Balkans, which have been promised membership for a long time, however, things have progressed more slowly. Maasikas also calls for activity and credible promises from the EU.

Ukraine began to move purposefully towards the European Union in 2014, despite Russian opposition.

“Ukraine is a European country in the geographical and cultural-historical sense. But then the nation of Ukraine decided to become part of Europe also in a political sense.”

I paying a heavy price for this now. Maasikas does not want to speculate on whether things could have been different if Ukraine’s membership had already been promoted in 2014.

However, he says that directly, that the EU has historically been bad at geopolitics and avoided talking about history “with all its might”.

“A full-scale war changed that because the EU had to choose sides.”

Now we have to take care that Ukraine wins the war, says Maasikas. The victory means that Ukraine must get back all the territories that Russia took from it, including the Crimean peninsula, the diplomat elaborates. He does not see a truce as a realistic option at this point, because then Russia would try to keep the territories it occupies.

Winning the war requires sufficient support from the EU and other Ukrainian partners and a new faith in the continent’s arms industry, Maasikas emphasizes.

“Support must be given so much that Ukraine wins the war.”

Ukrainians like Maasikas has learned to live and work in Kyiv to the rhythm of air alarms and frequent power outages.

After the big attack started in February 2022, he spent six weeks in evacuation in Poland. He says that he was the first ambassador to return to Ukraine after the start of the attack – besides the Polish ambassador, who did not leave the country at all.

However, Maasikas reminds us that the war that has been going on in the eastern parts of the country since 2014 has affected the everyday life of Ukrainians years before it was realized in the rest of Europe.

“400,000 people, or one percent of Ukraine’s population, had been on the frontline before the start of Russia’s full-scale attack in February 2022,” says Maasikas.

“It has marked the life of this nation.”