The next great eastern enlargement, which will change the EU forever, is closer. The decision of the Twenty-Seven to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova accelerates a process spurred by the war launched by Russia and the Kremlin's threats towards its neighbors. Furthermore, it puts the community club back in front of the mirror of its vulnerabilities and forces it to make reforms to remain functional with 29 Member States, to begin with, and around 500 million inhabitants. The EU must embark on the path of these political and economic changes to face a new, more heterodox reality, with very diverse members, economically and socially speaking. For the Union, enlargement is an existential issue of security and a “geostrategic investment in the peace and stability” of Europe, the leaders have recognized, according to the summit declaration.
This Thursday is a giant step. “The European Council's decision is a testament to the commitment and dedication of our partners towards our common values and EU reforms,” said the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell. “This is a significant step towards a united, prosperous and stable Europe,” he added on social networks. “Today is a strategic decision and a day that will be recorded in the history of our Union,” said the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
The Twenty-seven have set the summer of 2024 as a date to draw up a roadmap to clean up these internal reforms, although no deadline has been set to complete these institutional changes. The modification of the structures that could be made, as the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has suggested, without touching the founding treaties, will be extensive: in budgets, in decision-making processes, in agricultural policies.
In essence, they plan several options that include that the new great integration – after that of 2004, when Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta entered – be gradual with the participation first of the candidate countries (each at their own pace) in elements such as the single market (some voices even mention integration in the euro and the Schengen free movement area), different representative bodies and then go up the levels in their incorporation.
This would allow the European anchor to be strengthened while opening the door for applicants to participate in programs that can also help them adapt to European standards. This option, defended by the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, and also by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and to which some of the candidates are open (such as North Macedonia), does not convince everyone. Nor within the community Executive, where there are some reticent voices.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who launched the invasion of Ukraine to try to keep the country under his umbrella and prevent the consolidation of its turn towards the Union, has achieved the opposite of what he intended. Russia's war against Ukraine, which is on its way to being two years old and without which the enlargement towards the Balkans, which had been running aground for years, would not have been resurrected, has made European citizens aware of the urgency of the extension.
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Europeans are willing to accept Ukraine's accession despite the economic and security risks of admitting a country at war, according to a survey released this week by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Although the reaction towards those of Albania, Bosnia, Georgia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia is rather distant. The survey also shows that it is the citizens of the oldest members – such as France, Austria, Denmark and Germany – that are most resistant to enlargement. A significant percentage in almost all Member States (54% in the case of Austrians, for example) also believes that opening the doors to new members (especially Ukraine) will not bring economic benefit to the community club.
In fact, the extension to take on kyiv, Chisinau, the five Balkan countries and Georgia (which they designated as a candidate country this Thursday) is putting stress on the community club. Hungary's opposition has demonstrated this, despite the fact that its Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has opened his hand and has avoided maintaining a veto, which has been in the air for weeks. This is made visible by the blockades of grain and Ukrainian trucks on the Polish borders and the friction with other of its neighbors. Also the negotiation of the budget review in which several partners want to get their hands on the cohesion and agricultural funds (which will fundamentally have the new Member States as beneficiaries) already thinking about the next accounts, which must be set in 2027 and will already look ahead. the expansion.
The rush with Ukraine, which in just two years has gone through all the previous statuses (applicant, candidate and candidate in negotiation) to the opening of talks, is stinging in the countries of the Western Balkans. Several of them have needed much longer to reach the point that kyiv has now achieved. Albania, for example, was identified as a potential candidate in 2003 and only in 2020 did the European Council authorize the opening of negotiations. Others, like Serbia, spent less time in that situation, but for years and years they have watched in frustration as there is no progress in the negotiations. Belgrade received the go-ahead in 2013 and ten years later not much progress has been seen.
However, the paradigmatic case is that of Turkey, a country that was designated a candidate in 1999 and which received authorization to begin negotiations for joining the EU in 2005. Two decades later, barely three chapters of the 33 that comprise the conversations. In any case, the talks with Ukraine and the rest include a lot of fine print and their actual entry may take many years.
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