EU’S approach to include Ukraine in its fold
In Feb 2019 Ukraine's constitution was amended to commit to joining European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). An official application for Ukraine to join the EU was signed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 28 Feb 2022. But the desire of Ukraine to join the EU goes way back to 1993, in 1993 Ukraine announced that joining the EU is its main foreign policy objective, but Russia was its biggest trade partner of Russia and Ukraine was largely dependent on the Russian energy supplies the move didn’t pan out. Ukraine shares a Border with EU countries Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Romania.
The EU was employing an eastern partnership policy to get Ukraine closer to it. EU has been signing several agreements since the 1990s to include
Ukraine in the EU politically and economically, they include the Association Agreement (AA), Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA),
and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area?(DCFTA).
Even though the European Union was trying to encourage Ukraine’s economic, judicial and political reforms, it never fully understood the internal situation of Ukraine, Russia and the EU both wanted to extend their influence in Ukraine. while the EU going towards the association agreement with Ukraine, it didn’t expect Russia to use methods that it didn’t use in the past as a response. The EU didn’t pay much attention to the consequences in the region if Ukraine becomes too close to the EU. When dealing with other countries in Europe membership is always the secondary goal for the EU, the primary goal is to get the countries closer to the EU standards by conditionality and socialization.[i]
EU’s policy choices suggested that the EU’s primary intention was to keep Ukraine distant from Russia and work towards the inclusion of Ukraine into the EU as a secondary goal. The rivalry between both The Eu and Russia left Ukraine in a state of disorder domestically. Ukraine for a brief period enjoyed benefits from both the sides of Russia and the EU. But “the EU underestimated not only Putin; it equally underestimated Yanukovych, who has played Brussels against Moscow to get ‘money, money, money.” Said an EU diplomat.
The EU's policy to expand toward eastern Europe doesn’t involve any traditional power politics or the use of the military as a tool for its aims. The EU uses peaceful means to induce positive change in Ukraine without any negative impact on the relationship with Russia, but how far the EU managed to succeed is a question up for debate.The EU mostly reflects on normative and civilian power when it comes to expansionism, Michael Meimeth and Jrostaw Ja?czak argue that “From the perspective of the ‘civilian power’ discourse, both the enlargement process as well as the Partnership Initiative were and still are all about transferring and diffusing the EU’s internal values and norms to the states of Central and Eastern Europe allowing a post-national order to replace the logic of power politics that governed this part of Europe until the end of the Cold War.”[ii]
The EU embarked on various programmes and policies to get Ukraine closer to the EU, some of the important are discussed further in this article. As mentioned before the primary goal of the EU is to get the country's regulations and standards closer to that of the EU before making it a member state.
Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA):
The EU mainly enters into Partnership and Cooperation Agreements with countries that come under European neighbourhood policy like former Soviet republics and countries from northern Africa. It is a legally binding agreement between the EU and the third country. The EU works the democratic and economic development in the country, countries mostly enter into this agreement for 10 years and the agreement will be extended each year with no objections.
The PCA was signed between Ukraine and the EU in 1994 “The objective of the Agreement is to strengthen the bilateral relationship and a comprehensive dialogue between the Partie and to promote further cooperation in all sectors of mutual interest.”[iii]
Association Agreement:
The association agreement is a political and economic association between Ukraine and the European Union (EU), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), Ukraine and the EU's 28 member states (as separate parties). In this agreement, Ukraine will get financial and political support from the EU, access to research and knowledge, and preferential access to the markets of the EU. This agreement is a commitment to Ukraine to gradually conform to EU technical and consumer standards with the support of the EU and a commitment to all the parties to converge toward the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and European Defence Agency policies.
former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign the Association Agreement with the EU in 2013, which resulted in the Euromaidan Revolution and change in the government, and the next government signed the AA with the EU in 2014. The change in the regime or as the Russians call it ‘coup d’état’ was their (Russians) justification for the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The agreement came into effect in 2017.
Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area?(DCFTA):
The DCFTA is aimed to achieve “four freedoms”. they are Single Market: free movement of goods, services, capital, and people. The work on DCFTA began in 1999, and the agreement entered into force provisionally in Jan 2016. “The DCFTA will offer Ukraine a framework for modernising its trade relations and for economic development by the opening of markets via the progressive removal of customs tariffs and quotas, and by an extensive harmonisation of laws, norms and regulations in various trade-related sectors, creating the conditions for aligning key sectors of the Ukrainian economy to EU standards.”[iv]
The Ukraine president appealed to the EU to make Ukraine a member of the EU with a special procedure, day before submitting a formal application. Even though the EU said that Ukraine is to closer the EU than ever, it doesn’t seem so sure about making the war-torn country its member immediately with a special procedure. The leaders of the EU also stressed that the European Union will not bend its rules by offering membership to a war-torn country on a fast-track basis. And there is no existing fast track procedure for membership in the EU. Ukraine will also have to go through the accession procedure outlined in Article 49 TEU like every other country which joined the EU did.It's not only about bending the institution’s rules, but it can also have a lot to do with the obligations that come to all the member states if Ukraine gets special membership under a special procedure. All the 27 countries are also not on board with the idea of making Ukraine a member of the Union, because according to the President of the European Council Charles Michel admitted that there are “different opinions and sensitivities within the EU on enlargement.”[v] President of the European Commission von der Leyen noted that “There is still a long path ahead”[vi], implying that Ukraine is not going to get EU membership on the special procedure. Even with a high dependence on energy imports from Russia, the EU showed its willingness to support Ukraine by encouraging economic integration with the EU, judicial, political and economic reforms, and showing interest in stabilizing the economy of Ukraine,
Notes
[i] https://www.cairn.info/revue-l-europe-en-formation-2016-3-page-73.htm
[ii] Michael Meimeth and Jarostaw Ja?czak, Highway to hell? European Union’s Eastern Policy from a Civilian power perspective, CIFE note de recherche no. 17 June 2015, p. 2).
[iii] https://www.fdfa.be/en/partnership-and-cooperation-agreement-between-the-european-communities-and-their-member-states-and-#:~:text=States%2C%20and%20Ukraine-,Partnership%20and%20Cooperation%20Agreement%20between%20the%20European%20Communities%20and%20their,all%20sectors%20of%20mutual%20interest.
[iv] https://eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/ukraine/pdf/071215_eu-ukraine_association_agreement.pdf
[v] 7 Michel, Charles, Remarks by President Charles Michel at the extraordinary debate at the European Parliament on Russian aggression against Ukraine, European Parliament, 01 March 2021
[vi] von Der Leyen, Ursula, Speech by President von der Leyen at the European Parliament Plenary on the Russian aggression against Ukraine, European Parliament, 01 March 2022.
Pic Courtsey-Carl Campbell at unsplash.com
(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of CESCUBE.)
