Ukraine 'highly prepared' for next steps in EU bid, deputy PM says

Ukraine will complete by the end of this week the second part of a questionnaire on the ability of Ukraine to assume the obligations of membership and expects a positive answer in June, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister for European integration, Olha Stefanishyna, told EURACTIV but added that Kyiv understands “there is no fast track” for EU membership.

Ukraine completed the first part of the EU’s questionnaire on membership – one of the key steps at the start of a country’s EU accession bid – on 18 April at a record speed of only 10 days.

According to EU officials, the expectation is that the European Commission’s recommendation on whether the bloc’s leaders should discuss the next steps in the membership process could be drafted in May and be ready by late June.

EURACTIV understands the second questionnaire covers 33 areas of cooperation between Ukraine and the bloc.

Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, said Kyiv was confident the answers include “all the background” for the European Commission to issue a positive opinion.

“We are absolutely capable, and the European Commission is fully capable of making sure that before the summit in June, all the procedures are done,” she said, also confirming that Kyiv had been lobbying member states for that purpose.

Asked whether she expects opposition from some member states in the next stage of the application process, after a positive opinion, Stefanishyna said “Ukraine fully recognises that there is no ‘fast track’ for membership”.

Even though Ukraine’s process is expected to be somewhat quicker than that of other EU member states, it still is likely to be lengthy. Croatia, the most recent EU member, took 10 years to join the bloc.

Avoiding mistakes

“We understand it’s only the beginning of the long way we will be going,” Stefanishyna said when asked about Kyiv’s expectations on the speed of the process.

“But the EU should make no mistake in not deciding to grant Ukraine a candidate status because there is a high level of preparedness for this decision can be taken,” she added.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister warned the bloc should not repeat NATO’s mistake from Bucharest in 2008 when the alliance decided it would not yet offer membership to Georgia and Ukraine.

“Since that, we heard the same message here now for more than 60 days of war,” she said, adding that the war has proven the compatibility of Ukraine not only on the battlefield but also through the reform agenda.

According to her, the historical mistake has become a lesson learned in the case of Finland and Sweden.

“If Sweden and Finland were in a position to wait for 15 years before they will get membership, they would get a war on their territory,” she said, warning that, should the EU not take a positive decision in June, this “would also demotivate Ukrainian people who would think that European leaders do not believe in our victory”.

“For us, it’s really important that in June, EU leaders would not make this mistake, and we’ll make this decision and will leave no leverage to Russia to seek to undermine the unity in terms of the Ukrainian perspective,” she added.

She also said French, German and Italian leaders should come to Kyiv on 9 May to celebrate Europe Day “while Putin is sitting alone watching his tanks on the Red Square”.

Asked whether it could be detrimental for Ukraine that Western Balkan countries North Macedonia and Albania have not yet received the green light to start accession talks despite having a candidate status for years, Stefanishyna said that “if it would not be for the Ukrainian application, the enlargement dialogue might not have been restarted on the Western Balkans”.

“We consider this not as an obstacle but as an opportunity for the Western Balkans to reboot the whole narrative about EU enlargement,” she added.

‘Widely aligned’

Aspirants wanting to join the EU typically face a long and complex process that often requires major reforms to reach the bloc’s standards on political and economic convergence.

“Ukraine has managed to implement over 70% of all legal compliance obligations under the EU Association Agreement,” Stefanishyna said.

According to Kyiv, this would include the fact that the EU has already assessed the Ukrainian market, legislation and businesses in the fields of digital, economy, transport and energy as well as having removed trade barriers and declared an ambitious climate agenda.

“This is what we’re talking about when we speak of the ‘fast track’ procedure because we already have a significant background and our relations,” Stefanishyna said.

“In a time of war, we have a fully operational government, fully operational institutions, fully operational banking and financial sector, which has nearly never been the case in any country, which has been in war,” she added.

In March, Ukraine also became part of the EU’s energy system, meaning that it has joined the European ENTSO-E energy network,

“This was unprecedented as we managed to go through all the testing within 24 hours, which has been done under the shelling and bombings,” Stefanishyna said.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]