Security Policy | Experts challenge Stubb’s view of Ukraine’s NATO path

Cognoscenti challenge the president of the republic by Alexander Stubb view of Ukraine’s EU and NATO membership path.

Stubbs said on Friday at the Helsinki Security Forum event organized by the foreign policy institute, that he sees Ukraine first joining the European Union and only then NATO.

“I believe that there will be some sort of order: EU membership first and NATO membership second. And of course sometimes it’s a long road to either or both,” said Stubb.

Helsinki Experts speaking at the Security Forum event on Sunday believed that Ukraine’s path is the opposite.

EU membership is already a much more complicated matter with its legal dimensions than NATO membership, says Finland’s former ambassador to the United States Mikko Hautala.

“We know that NATO is about defense, the EU is about everything else plus defense to some extent,” Hautala said.

“By definition, it’s going to be a longer process no matter how we would like to speed it up or no matter how quickly Ukraine meets the criteria.”

Swedish the new ambassador to Finland Peter Ericson pointed out that, with the exception of Finland and Sweden, every new NATO member since the Cold War has first become a NATO member and only then an EU member.

That’s how it is. For example, Albania joined NATO in 2009, but it has not yet become an EU member. Croatia became a member of NATO in 2009, and joined the EU in 2013.

Montenegro and North Macedonia, which joined NATO in 2017 and 2020, are not yet EU members.

In the case of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the accessions took place quite simultaneously in the spring of 2004, although they were also admitted to NATO first.

Stubby the view was that Ukraine should first receive bilateral security guarantees, then EU membership and finally NATO membership.

Stubb emphasized that Finland supports Ukraine’s NATO membership together with the alliance, but the timing must be right.

“As we all know, a country in a state of war cannot be admitted to the Union,” he said.

In the discussion, he did not justify his view on Ukraine’s accession first to the EU and then to NATO.

For example, it is known that the United States has so far been quite cautious about Ukraine’s rapid NATO membership.

Foreign policy program director of the institute Arkady Moshes reckon it’s easy to say either membership should come first.

When we go into the details, even joining NATO is not easy, he reminded.

It’s still easier than joining the EU, Moshes said on Sunday at the Helsinki Security Forum panel.

Reader Katri Pynnöniemi The University of Helsinki and the National Defense Academy wanted to remind us what the discussion is really about: security guarantees that can prevent Russia from bombing Ukraine on a daily basis and how this can be achieved.

“And with my logic, I think NATO should come first because there has to be a certain security to be able to rebuild the country and integrate it effectively with the rest of Europe.”