The road to here has been unprecedented.
Unprecedentedly fast.
Ukraine went through the application process in a hurry.
If the EU summit now crowns the application with candidate status - and there is much to be said for this - the procedure alone will be considered historic.
Initially, the status would not have any practical effects.
Whether and when Ukraine would actually become a member of the EU remains to be seen.
“It's one of the birth defects.
You're giving Ukraine something it doesn't really need right now, to cover up the fact that you're denying what it needs.
Namely money and guns«.
Ralf Neukirch reports as SPIEGEL correspondent from Brussels.
In the new episode of SPIEGEL Daily, he reconstructs how Ursula von der Leyen significantly advanced the dynamics in the accession question and thus set in motion a process that can hardly be stopped.
And he classifies what the candidate status for Ukraine triggers for countries in the Western Balkans and why they could possibly tie themselves more closely to Russia as a result: "It's a signal to them that you are second-class neighbors.
And of course that's dangerous."
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