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EU accession: Can you also say no to Ukraine?

2022-06-20T13:00:06.037Z


The EU has upgraded the country to candidate country. But everyone suspects that it will never become a member. Is that cynical or is there no alternative?


Enlarge image

Demonstration in Berlin: »The reinvention of the European Union cannot be served as an emergency decree in times of war«

Photo: John Macdougall / AFP

It's not every day that the only tangible outcome of a very important day is… intangible.

At least that's how it felt for me after Messrs. Scholz, Macron and Draghi declared in Kyiv last week that Ukraine should officially become a "candidate for accession" to the European Union, start negotiations as soon as possible and ultimately become a full member.

“The Ukrainians are willing to die for the prospect of Europe.

We want them to live the European dream with us,” said Ursula von der Leyen, washed with all the holy water.

You can smell the show, and yet I find her words appropriate.

Only: With this moral charge, who can still say no to Ukraine?

Nobody really, and that's a problem.

If it is meant seriously, right up to full membership, the forthcoming decision must be called "historic", a major "turning point" in Brussels - which, of course, is blatantly under-discussed in terms of the process itself and its immense consequences.

Ukraine's accession would entail a historic reassessment of the EU, a radical Eastward shift in its center and with it its essence.

You can want that.

But I think you should talk about it a little beforehand, maybe even with the citizens: the reinvention of the European Union cannot be served up as an emergency decree in times of war.

And above all, it must not happen just because German tank howitzers are not at hand and the most modern Leos are not supposed to go to the Donbass.

can not

do?

I have a suspicion that the European Union is not writing its own history, but that the history of the European Union is being written by Russia's war.

Is that how we want it?

Although the war is both the reason and justification for the action, the prospect of candidate status for Ukraine offers no military protection whatsoever.

The EU is not the forecourt of NATO.

Instead, several EU candidates have long been NATO members because the admission process is much faster.

The EU, on the other hand, is an economic, legal and community of values ​​that has grown like a sediment and is sometimes lethargic.

It's the opposite of fast, but above all, Ukraine needs security fast.

If so, then the country really belongs in NATO quickly, but there is no majority for it, and that is why the EU should step in.

Isn't that so?

"The candidate status is about more," Foreign Minister Baerbock wrote on Twitter.

"The question of whether we are in a position to act strategically at a historical moment instead of according to the formula." I don't know what the minister means by "scheme" but in the last attempts at EU enlargement the candidates were either taken up at some point because they were ready or because longer negotiations seemed unreasonable.

Or the negotiations were not allowed to really start at all, but petered out early.

There was no pattern to be seen.

If anything has repeated itself, it is the EU's inability to discuss and define the limits of its absorption capacity.

The treaties have been adjusted several times, but big plans have failed, while the number of member states has roughly doubled since 1995.

Some cloak of history always blows.

But if the unity of the EU is currently the most frequently praised and actually helps Ukraine, then logically it should be the last to be jeopardized.

But that is exactly what threatens a mass entry, as it is now looming.

It's not about the size of the new member states, it's about their number and their diversity.

And shouldn't we also have a thorough discussion about whether every country that wants (and can) should actually become a member of the European Union?

I think the EU should have some idea of ​​how it wants to look one day forever, whether smaller or larger than Europe.

This notion does not exist.

This was not least the undoing of the accession process with Turkey, and everyone suspects that the same thing will happen with Ukraine.

Wherever skepticism about accession has surfaced in the last few days, the self-exposing rumor has been: "It's going to be years before that happens." This is, of course, a cynical distraction for the doubting public and outright mockery for Ukraine.

Do you want them in or do you just want to save face in front of the story?

In any case, Brussels will not be able to continue in a technocratic, accounting manner what Mrs von der Leyen started with maximum pathos.

That's why it seems to me that something is on its head: things that should be approached with caution are decided in a hurry.

But things that need to be done quickly take forever, like arms deliveries or an energy boycott.

So the bottom line for me is the question: do these skeptical arguments no longer count because they pale so completely in comparison to the suffering and heroism of the Ukrainians?

Do those responsible at some point have to put reason aside in order to remain human and to prove themselves worthy of those who are also fighting for us in eastern Ukraine, because that's what they are doing?

I don't have a clear answer to that, the columnist lays down his arms.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-06-20

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