A8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, JUNE 12 , 2022
war in ukraineBY EMILY RAUHALA
AND MICHAEL BIRNBAUMbrussels — Ukraine is one of us.
It is marching toward a Euro-
pean future. The future of Eu-
rope is, in fact, the future of
Ukraine.
These are the messages top
European Union officials have
delivered since Russia launched
its full-scale invasion and Ukrai-
nian President Volodymyr Zel-
ensky pleaded for a fast track to
membership. But ahead of an
E.U. summit on the issue this
month, these messages look in-
creasingly at odds with where
member states actually stand.
It is not yet clear if the 27 E.U.
countries will grant Ukraine
“candidate status” — an early
step on the long path to member-
ship — or some sort of symbolic
pre-candidate status, diplomats
said. What seems certain is that
Ukraine, as it fights for its life,
will be let down.
While several E.U. officials,
lawmakers and leaders have
pressed to expedite Kyiv’s bid,
others have tried to temper
Ukrainian expectations, stress-
ing that membership might be
decades away. In private conver-
sations, some E.U. diplomats
conceded that their governments
are nervous about starting the
accession process with a country
at war. A few wondered if
Ukraine had a shot at joining at
all.
Zelensky on Friday urged the
E.U. to pull his country out of the
gray area between Europe and
Russia. Granting Ukraine candi-
date status would “prove that
words about the longing of the
Ukrainian people to be a part of
the European family are not just
words,” he said in a virtual ad-
dress to the Copenhagen Democ-
racy Summit.
The gap between the full-
throated support from top E.U.
officials as they pose for pictures
with Zelensky and the quiet
skepticism of many E.U. diplo-
mats hangs over preparations for
the bloc’s June 23-24 summit —
and has not gone unnoticed by
Kyiv.
“None of the 27 would say
right in the face of the president
‘no,’ but what is happening be-
hind the scenes is clear willing-
ness to put obstacles into the
process,” Olha Stefanishyna,
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister
for European and Euro-Atlantic
Integration of Ukraine, said on a
visit to Brussels.
If it joined, Ukraine would
become the fifth-most-populous
E.U. nation, and also by far the
poorest, drawing subsidies from
the rest of the bloc. Its per capita
gross domestic product last year
was $4,872. The current poorest
E.U. country, Bulgaria, stood at
$11,683, according to estimates
from the International Monetary
Fund.
The European Commission,
the bloc’s executive arm, is ex-
pected to deliver a recommenda-
tion on Ukraine’s status this
week. E.U. diplomats said the
commission may recommend
candidate status but with condi-
tions attached — a compromise
unlikely to please Ukraine.
Since the decision is ultimate-ly up to member states, Stefan-
ishyna and other Ukrainian offi-
cials have been touring Euro-
pean capitals to make the case
that Ukraine needs and deserves
candidate status without condi-
tions. “The starting point for any
discussion is the legal status of
Ukraine,” she said.
The debate about Ukraine’s
bid threatens to open a split
between the country and its
European backers, dealing a
blow to Kyiv’s aspirations to
break free from Russia’s grasp
and integrate more tightly with
its neighbors to the west.
It also risks further fracturing
European unity on assistance for
Ukraine, exacerbating tensions
between central European coun-
tries and Baltic states, on oneside, which support Ukraine’s
“swift candidacy to the E.U.,” and
Western Europeans, who tend to
harbor more reservations about
Ukraine’s readiness.
“This is a country at war, and
they need a morale boost,” Latvi-
an Foreign Minister Edgars
Rinkevics said in an interview. “I
can imagine what the Russian
propaganda is going to do with
it.”
Witold Waszczykowski, a for-
mer Polish foreign minister who
is now a member of the Euro-
pean Parliament, said the E.U.
must do whatever it can for
Ukraine, including granting can-
didate status. “We understand
that we are next,” he said. “If
Ukraine collapses, Russia will be
the winner and it will go further
west.”
Stefanishyna said Ukrainian
officials are working to persuade
the holdouts, including “some
Nordic countries,” the Nether-
lands and Germany.
In a visit to Kyiv last month,
German Foreign Minister An-
nalena Baerbock stressed that
there is “no shortcut” to mem-
bership. Privately, German lead-
ers have expressed concern that
if they open membership talks
with Ukraine now, Zelensky by
August will be demanding to be
let in immediately, though the
process typically takes years, offi-
cials familiar with their position
said. But the German govern-
ment has not offered an official
view on whether Ukraine should
be offered candidate status soon.
“The formal position of Ger-
many is that they don’t have a
formal position so far,” Stefan-ishyna said. “We treat that as a
positive signal.”
Joining the E.U. is grindingly
complex. A prospective mem-
ber’s entire body of laws must be
picked over and brought into
compliance with standards set in
Brussels.
The bloc is also well aware that
it has far more leverage before a
country joins than afterward.
Once a country is in, it’s much
harder to influence democratic
commitments — as backsliding
among some E.U. members has
made clear.
For Ukraine, decades of cor-
ruption present a problem. The
country ranked 122 out of 180
countries in Transparency Inter-
national’s 2021 corruption per-
ceptions index. Though Ukraini-
an leaders stress progress on this
front, several E.U. diplomats said
their governments remain con-
cerned.
“Ukraine wasn’t close before,
and it is not close now,” said one
E.U. diplomat, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity to de-
scribe private conversations.
“But if enlargement is not a
direct option, what do you do?”
In a speech to mark Europe
Day last month, French Presi-
dent Emmanuel Macron tried to
answer that question, sketching
his vision of a “European Politi-
cal Community” that would in-
clude an outer circle of democra-
cies that want to be part of the
E.U. — like Ukraine, and even
Britain after it chose to leave.
“We feel in our heart that
Ukraine, through its fight and its
courage, is already today a mem-
ber of our Europe, of our family
and of our union,” Macron said.
“We all know perfectly well
that the process allowing them to
join would take several years —
in truth, probably several dec-
ades,” he continued. “That is the
truth, unless we decide to lower
the standards of this accession
and therefore completely rethink
the unity of our Europe.”
Macron’s proposal hasn’t re-
ceived a warm reaction within
the E.U. And Ukrainian Foreign
Minister Dmytro Kuleba rejected
it outright. He called out un-
named E.U. capitals, saying their
strategic ambiguity on Ukraine’s
status has “emboldened Putin.”
“We do not need surrogates for
EU candidate status that show
second-class treatment of
Ukraine and hurt feelings of
Ukrainians,” he tweeted.
Enlargement skeptics are
quick to point out that other
countries are ahead in line. Ser-
bia, Montenegro, North Macedo-
nia, Albania and Bosnia have all
been in membership talks with
the E.U. for years. Turkey applied
in 1987 and formally remains a
candidate, even if it has largelygiven up.
Some policymakers and diplo-
mats acknowledge that Ukraine
stands apart because of the ur-
gency of its situation. But they
still are leery of alienating coun-
tries that applied earlier.
Ukraine has been pushing for
years to further integrate with
the E.U., and a free-trade agree-
ment is already in place. But it
formally applied for membership
on Feb. 28, four days after Rus-
sia’s invasion.
On March 1, Zelensky deliv-
ered a virtual address to an
extraordinary session of the Eu-
ropean Parliament. Speaking
from a bunker in Kyiv as Russian
forces pressed into Ukraine, he
said his country was not only
fighting for “survival” but “also
to be equal members of Europe.”
“Prove that you are with us,” he
challenged.
The speech landed with force.
An E.U. interpreter was so moved
by Zelensky’s evocation of the
shelling of Kharkiv that he mo-
mentarily lost his composure. By
the time the Ukrainian president
finished speaking, the audience
was on its feet.
At a March summit in Ver-
sailles, outside Paris, E.U. leaders
were more tentative. Hours of
debate yielded a statement that
the European Council “acknowl-
edged the European aspirations
and the European choice of
Ukraine” and would task officials
in Brussels with providing an
assessment.
European Commission Presi-
dent Ursula von der Leyen regu-
larly touts the country’s “Euro-
pean future.” In a visit to Kyiv in
April, she handed Zelensky a
questionnaire that marks the
first stage of the candidacy proc-
ess and offered words of support.
“Dear Volodymyr, my message
today is clear: Ukraine belongs in
the European family,” she said.
“This is where your path toward
the European Union begins.”
In Brussels, several E.U. diplo-
mats said von der Leyen had
overpromised, either because
she misjudged the mood among
member states or because she
hoped to nudge them forward.
More than one diplomat put
the odds of candidate status at
“50/50.” A few were more skepti-
cal, predicting a half-step, such
as the promise of candidate sta-
tus at some point in the future, so
long as conditions are met.
Stefanishyna, the deputy
prime minister, said the starting
point for Ukraine was candidate
status without conditions. “We
are not playing the game of
promises,” she said.Birnbaum reported from
Washington. Quentin Ariès in
Brussels contributed to this report.E.U. calls Kyiv ‘family’ but is split on fast-tracking membership
SERGEI SUPINSKY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky takes part in an April
news conference. The European Union’s executive arm is expected
to deliver a recommendation on Ukraine’s status this week.Backers fear Russian
advance, while others
unsure Ukraine i s readySTEPHANIE LECOCQ/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK
Ukrainian and European officials hold a joint news conference Thursday in Brussels on new European
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