The corruption scandal engulfing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s authorities has shortly eclipsed the uplifting cheer issuing from the European Union’s current commendations for Ukraine’s progress towards becoming a member of the bloc. On Nov. 12, the nation’s vitality and justice ministers stepped down within the wake of a wide-ranging investigation into corruption within the vitality sector. Ukraine’s anti-corruption company charged eight people with abuse of workplace, bribery, and illicit enrichment, delivering a forceful blow to Zelensky’s administration at a second when Ukraine faces setbacks on the battlefield.
But only a week earlier than the allegations turned public, the European Fee issued a largely upbeat annual accession overview for Ukraine. The nation solely assumed candidate standing three years in the past, within the months instantly after Russia’s full invasion, and accession negotiations began in December 2023. Within the warmth of its punishing conflict with the world’s third-largest superpower, Ukraine has made bigger strides towards becoming a member of the EU than some Balkan international locations have throughout a decade of peace.
The corruption scandal engulfing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s authorities has shortly eclipsed the uplifting cheer issuing from the European Union’s current commendations for Ukraine’s progress towards becoming a member of the bloc. On Nov. 12, the nation’s vitality and justice ministers stepped down within the wake of a wide-ranging investigation into corruption within the vitality sector. Ukraine’s anti-corruption company charged eight people with abuse of workplace, bribery, and illicit enrichment, delivering a forceful blow to Zelensky’s administration at a second when Ukraine faces setbacks on the battlefield.
But only a week earlier than the allegations turned public, the European Fee issued a largely upbeat annual accession overview for Ukraine. The nation solely assumed candidate standing three years in the past, within the months instantly after Russia’s full invasion, and accession negotiations began in December 2023. Within the warmth of its punishing conflict with the world’s third-largest superpower, Ukraine has made bigger strides towards becoming a member of the EU than some Balkan international locations have throughout a decade of peace.
The EU report discovered that Ukraine had superior on each one of many 33 negotiating chapters. “On the one hand, it’s fairly an accomplishment,” mentioned Stefan Wolff, a German political scientist on the College of Birmingham. “There wasn’t stagnation or backsliding famous in a single class.” Ukraine has set itself an bold 2028 deadline to finish the EU accession course of.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos lauded Ukraine for advancing key reforms and underscored that membership was a “very real looking perspective,” even by 2030. “No candidate nation has ever carried out such sweeping reforms whereas at conflict,” EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas, the enlargement’s most effusive champion, mentioned in remarks presenting the report. The EU gave Ukraine excessive marks for enhancements in its inner market and preparedness in shopper and well being safety.
However the reward grew thinner when it got here to the rule of regulation, public administration reform, and democratic establishments. “Latest unfavorable traits, together with strain on the specialised anti-corruption businesses and civil society, should be decisively reversed,” it admonished, a reference to this summer time’s row over the administration’s ham-fisted try to rein within the nation’s impartial corruption bureau. The most recent allegations of corruption at such excessive ranges and so near the president underscore that Ukraine has additional to go than the EU overview lets on.
The credibility of the EU’s well-meaning blandishments are additionally undermined by different fundamental info of life in Ukraine: that the Ukrainian armed forces stay on the again foot within the battlefield, for instance, and whole Ukrainian cities are presently pressured to dwell with out electrical energy or warmth. An incontrovertible precondition to Ukraine’s integration into Europe is pushing Russia again past its borders. As long as Ukraine is at conflict and chunks of its territory are occupied by Russian forces, the prospect of full EU membership is wishful considering.
Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko of the Nationwide College Odesa Regulation Academy argue that, in actuality, Brussels’s report card on Ukraine’s integration into Europe contains damning criticism. Within the combat towards corruption, such “developments forged doubts on Ukraine’s dedication to its anti-corruption agenda,” said the report, printed 9 days earlier than the corruption scandal broke..
Regardless of this, the fee is now principally at pains to defend Ukraine: Corruption is widespread throughout Europe, it underlined in its report; what issues is how states reply. “This investigation reveals that anti-corruption our bodies are in place and functioning in Ukraine,” a European Fee spokesperson mentioned at a press briefing on Nov. 13. “The combat towards corruption has been central to our enlargement bundle. … It requires steady efforts to ensure a robust capability to fight corruption and the respect for the rule of regulation.”
But there are different hurdles that make the 2030 membership date look starry-eyed. The bloc hasn’t inducted a brand new member since 2014, and throughout the continent there may be muted enthusiasm to start once more with Montenegro and Albania (they’re on the head of the road) after which transfer on to Ukraine and Moldova. France is skeptical that any growth eastward is manageable, and French voters are fearful that the far proper might journey anti-immigrant sentiment to victory in 2027.
In Austria, the Czech Republic, and France, lower than 46 p.c of residents again additional enlargement. Hungary and Slovakia (and maybe now the Czech Republic, too) state very plainly that they oppose Ukraine’s incorporation into the union. Surveys present that odd Poles disapprove of membership for his or her neighbor, and up to date tiffs over Ukrainian agricultural exports have additional soured relations already mired in historic points. In Germany, polls present the fearmongering, Russia-friendly Different for Germany main.
And if EU membership shouldn’t be within the playing cards in so close to a future as Kallas suggests, European leaders are doing Ukraine a disservice with their insincere encouragement, as they’ve prior to now when backing democratic reforms after which failing to ship when push involves shove. Even after giving Ukraine the inexperienced mild for eventual membership, Kos retreated shortly thereafter, telling the Monetary Instances that she didn’t “wish to go down because the commissioner bringing within the Trojan horses.” In different phrases, she needs to make sure that one other troublemaker like Hungary doesn’t enter the union on her watch and sabotage it the way in which that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has.
“The European Union now has a whole lot of homework to do,” journalist Ales Gaube wrote within the Slovak day by day Dnevnik. “It must reply the query of the way it intends to stay able to appearing with new member states with its personal reform course of. It should persuade a European public that’s skeptical about enlargement that new members will strengthen the bloc.”
Europe’s guarantees look significantly skinny in mild of its lack of ability even to ensure Ukraine’s financing for 2026 and past. “Ukraine is going through a savage money crunch,” the Economist opined final month. “Except one thing adjustments, it’ll run out of cash on the finish of February. This cliff edge is quick approaching.” Ukraine is relying on the EU to cowl price range gaps in 2026 and 2027 to the tune of $61 billion, an upshot of the Trump administration’s withdrawal and the conflict’s prolongation. The holdup is Belgium, which opposes utilizing frozen Russian belongings to take action, because the Russian accounts holding these billions are in Brussels.
“One factor we’ve discovered from the western Balkans,” mentioned Ulf Brunnbauer, a historian on the College of Regensburg, “is that setting hopes too excessive after which not coming by way of breeds frustration and encourages the far proper,” referring to North Macedonia’s unfavorable improvement.
Brunnbauer, like Wolff, doesn’t suppose that Ukraine’s prospects for 2030 membership are real looking. “Nations like Montenegro and Albania are very small,” he mentioned, “and doable for the EU, however Ukraine is one other amount totally.” Ukraine’s prewar inhabitants was 41 million, whereas Montenegro’s is 630,000 and Albania’s 2.8 million.
However there’s a center path that skirts disingenuous flattery, on the one hand, and defeatist hectoring, on the opposite. The EU’s membership standards have been bent earlier than: In 2004, freedom of motion for employees from Central European international locations was initially restricted after which lifted step by step. By 2011, freedom of motion was complete. Romania and Bulgaria joined although their judiciary reforms had been pending.
“It’s excessive time to noticeably take into account a step-by-step induction course of,” Brunnbauer mentioned. “One thing inventive and looser than full membership. Afterall, Ukraine is already handled as a de facto member. There needs to be the potential for totally taking part in some areas however not instantly having fun with veto rights.”
This actually isn’t what Zelensky means when he speaks about membership, and the EU wouldn’t lend defensive ensures to a rustic at conflict or partially occupied. But it surely might be a compromise with vital which means for Ukraine, a affirmation that it belongs to Europe and that its epic battle shouldn’t be in useless. However since all the pieces is dependent upon the battlefield final result, the Europeans would do effectively to focus on that earlier than Europe loses a democratic Ukraine altogether.
