At their summits, EU heads of government sometimes only have to do what the public expects of them: tie the knot. This is how it went on Monday evening in Brussels with the oil boycott against Russia. Troubled Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave up his resistance, after having negotiated an exception for Hungary from his 26 colleagues. Unity restored and oil payments to Putin’s war machine soon halted, summit chairman Charles Michel reported.
Even though in such cases negotiations go on until the small hours, you know in advance – if only because of the thousands of journalists outside the room, ready to flare division or indecision – that something will come out. Evidently, since the invasion of Ukraine, the European Union has had to get rid of Russian oil, so it was mainly a question of deadlines and modalities.
Much more exciting are major European decisions where the direction is not set in advance, where conflicting visions collide and leaders pave a path to the future. Such an open question is what the EU should do with Ukraine’s application for membership – yes, no, not yet? The answer determines not only the number of members, but also what kind of club the Union wants to be, how close and decisive. In three weeks, this hot potato will be on the plate of Rutte, Scholz, Macron and their colleagues. An hour of truth.
Yet the debate about it is remarkably poor. Nice success President Zelensky managed to frame Ukraine’s accession to the EU as a historic and moral duty. As if there is no choice. With NATO’s safe harbor out of reach, he wants to pilot his country into the EU. The mission has support from Poland and other Eastern European countries (and from the US). Those who don’t say yes will be told that they are denying the country access to ‘the European family’. And you can’t do that in a war.
In the House of Representatives Prime Minister Rutte annoyed at this moral pressure last week. But they can also blame themselves for the lack of a clear response to Ukraine’s pleas for reluctant member states, such as the Netherlands and Germany. Against the historical forces and the cry for help of a beleaguered people, they set the procedures that the EU enlargement trajectory is full of. ‘Step by step’, ‘rules are rules’, ‘a faster path for Ukraine is unfair for the Balkan countries’: relevant points in peacetime, but in wartime it comes across petty, almost cynical.
More serious is that in this way the strategic choice disappears from the picture. Certainly, there are strong geopolitical reasons for embedding Ukraine in European and Western contexts. But there are also valid strategic arguments why they should not necessarily be those of the EU.
One such argument (mentioned earlier) is that it is hard to imagine how Ukraine could join the EU without the protection of NATO membership. The EU includes a mutual assistance clause in its treaty in the event of an attack, but even the neutral EU states of Sweden and Finland feel insufficiently protected against this Russia and are now knocking on NATO’s door. How should such an arrangement work for Ukraine?
Another reason to think twice about the matter is that the accession of Ukraine, and thus inevitably also of Serbia and at least five more states in the Balkans and around the Black Sea, will fundamentally change the Union. With such a new eastward expansion, to 35 or more members, the EU is bringing in more conflict and division, more inequality and state weakness. This will force a drastic strengthening and centralization of decision-making in Brussels, especially in the fields of foreign policy and democratic values.
Nobody wants a repeat of the situation with Hungary and Poland. So think of future Brussels perseverance against slipping away from the rule of law. To abolish vetoes in foreign policy (to which Orbán in particular frequently opposes). Or stricter EU supervision of Russian or Chinese economic influence (relevant from the Balkans to the Zuidas). Without these and other reforms, the EU risks losing exactly the capacity to act that Paris, Berlin and now The Hague aspire to defend their interests and values together in the world – including against Russia.
Sometimes in the Brussels conversation you hear that the EU has to choose between ‘broadening’ (more members) and ‘deepening’ (stronger institutions). It’s a false dilemma. In practice, both movements go hand in hand. That is also why it is important that all 27 Member States realize what they are signing up for when they open the door to Ukraine in three weeks’ time. A new Union.
Luke of Middelaar is a political philosopher and historian.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 1, 2022