German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, has urged for the expansion of the European Union.
She was confident that the European Union would advance Ukraine’s bid to join the bloc at a summit next month.
“We want to see Ukraine a member of our European Union,” Baerbock said.
“The European Union has to be enlarged. That is the geo-political consequence of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” she added.
“I am convinced that the European Council in December is going to send out that signal,” Baerbock said.
EU leaders will decide at a December 14-15 summit whether to grant Ukraine the formal start of membership talks, which for Kyiv is a top priority on a par with Western military and financial support.
Presenting EU enlargement as a geo-strategic necessity, Baerbock stated that the 27-nation bloc also needed to plough ahead with “tedious” internal reforms to be able to function with 30-plus members.
She stressed, “However, an enlarged EU will only be stronger if we do what we have been so hesitant to do for so long – review and rethink the way in which our union functions.”
Baerbock said that a step-by-step enlargement must run in parallel with reforms to prevent the further growth of central EU institutions and reduce the use of national vetos.
The Minister also asserted that Russia must not be allowed “to plow an imperial trench… which will isolate not only Ukraine but also Moldova, Georgia and the Western Balkans” from the EU.
Ukraine Expresses Confidence In Joining EU
Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba disclosed that Kyiv was confident about opening EU membership talks this year, pointing to reforms that Kyiv has made even amid its efforts to fight off the Russian invasion.
Kuleba said that Ukraine was on course to fulfill its obligations to open negotiations on accession.
“We are optimistic. We did a lot of reforms and we passed legislation necessary to meet, to implement the recommendations,” he said.
“So we are looking forward to the presentation of this report and I have reasons to believe that it will pave the way to the decision of the European Council on opening accession talks with Ukraine,” he added.
EU member states are undecided about whether to complete their own reforms before they allow in more members, or whether to expand first and then work on the changes.
Kuleba warned against allowing the need for reform to slow down the enlargement process.
“EU reform should not take [the] enlargement process as a hostage and we have to find the right balance between the process of reforming the European Union and continuing with enlargement,” he said.
Membership negotiations, in which a candidate country must meet extensive legal, economic and political conditions, take many years.
Ukraine’s case is further complicated by the war, which Russia launched on February 24, 2022.
Ukraine would become the EU’s fifth most populous member state, as well as its poorest, meaning that – under current rules – it would absorb much of the bloc’s generous agriculture and development aid at the expense of current members.
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