Will a little spoiler about what the EU-Ukraine summit will bring: there will be no quick accession of Ukraine to the EU.During the last days Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmihal, in preparation for the summit, stated thatithe goal was to be able to join the EU over the next two years. Surely someone in Brussels choked on water when they heard such a statement. According to the various leaks of the final declaration of the summit, it seems that the Ukrainian government is betting on a horizon that has nothing to do with the reality of an enlargement process, especially if you find yourself in a state of war. There is no denying of the undoubted symbolic charge that this EU-Ukraine summit has, firstly because it will be held in kyiv, secondly because this fact adds to the recent decision taken by Germany to give the green light for Leopard main battle tanks can be transferred to the theater of operations of the war. The EU and its member states send a clear message to the Kremlin of their unwavering unity in supporting Ukraine.
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With this meeting the European leaders show that they are with Ukraine, They even hold the summit in a territory threatened by war, but they are very careful not to go beyond offering solidarity that includes quick accession. If the Ukrainian authorities thought that moral reasons would weigh more in this process than the own dynamics and political will of the EU member states, they were deeply mistaken. From good intentions, what the EU offers is the cover of the allies in hard times. Economic, industrial, energy support and a good investment plan for reconstruction from the country once the war is over and all possible spirits accompanied by tanks, but, for the moment, that is the limit. What Ukraine asks for, in addition to tanks, F-16 and submarines, it is a quick adhesion to the European structures appealing to a moral question on the part of the European allies. It does not seem that, on this occasion, putting the dead is going to serve him to achieve this objective. An objective, by the way, that It is part of Zelenski’s victory plan, together with the return to the 1991 borders, the provision of international justice for war criminals and the reconstruction of the country.
However, this time the decision becomes very complicated politically and very complex procedurally, although we know that when there is political will everything is possible to achieve. In fact, the war has shown that even a bureaucratic mastodon like the EU is capable of making decisions when time is short, and, above all, when the perception of threat feels very close and this has been verified with the rapid approval of the sanctions packages against Russia. There will be no exceptionalities in accession and Ukraine, like the rest of the candidates, will have to go through several preliminary phases that, on occasions, as in the case of the Western Balkans, can turn into decades of waiting at the gates of the EU. Pressure to grant Ukraine an exceptional status, as also happened in Ramstein, has not been lacking either. Poland and the Baltics have once again pressed to achieve their objectives, in this case, an accelerated path of accession. The statements that have been leaked in various media about the ins and outs of this summit show how the discourse of morality permeates everything, thus any movement that does not include acceleration is branded as collaborating with the Russians and “anything that smacks of criticism of Ukraine is considered almost heresy or collaboration with the Russians”. It seems that from some foreign ministries they do not realize that all these orchestral maneuvers do not favor Ukraine’s path towards the EU at all and do nothing more than generate some expectations which, as far as a good part of the member states are concerned, are a remote possibility. Ukraine has a long way to go and, in the meantime, it should adjust its rule of law, actively fight corruption and resolutely protect its minorities.