Andrew Tettenborn
Ukraine should think twice before joining the EU
Volodymyr Zelensky certainly made big waves when he addressed the European parliament. In the ensuing debate last week, many MEPs made emotional calls for the EU to show its solidarity with Ukraine by accepting its application made a couple of days earlier for full EU membership. So did those outside: nine Baltic and eastern European states immediately supported the project, and Poland, the EU member with most in common with Ukraine and hitherto the most generous to its refugees, called bluntly for membership to be not only granted but fast-tracked.
However, the fires of enthusiasm were quickly and unceremoniously doused by Brussels, with Germany and the Netherlands pouring cold water on the plan. Neither Ukraine, nor Moldova and Georgia, which both applied hard on its heels, should receive special treatment; all should queue up and patiently wait their turn. A depressing rebuff? Not necessarily. Actually Ukraine may well have good reason to be grateful.
For one thing, however euphoric the protestations about the European family and the shouts of 'Slava Ukraini!' that rang through the Berlaymont building in recent days, it’s not easy to see that EU membership would actually benefit Ukraine much in its difficulties with Russia.
The EU is hardly a military powerhouse. True, it has sanctioned Russia economically. But get matters in perspective. Russia desperately needs hard cash to continue its pulverising of Ukrainian cities. What are EU countries doing? They are paying it a very useful $300 million (£230 million) a day in exchange for gas. Brussels has ruled out putting a stop to this any time soon. True, it talks optimistically of reducing its systemic dependence on Russian oil and gas over the coming months, but that is by-the-by. By then in all likelihood the present war will be over. Meanwhile Putin could hardly have hoped for better support. The EU has assured him that, for the moment, it prefers to protect its own comfortable lifestyle by continuing to suck greedily at the Russian gas teat, and that it will not cut off his convenient source of cash for some little time, during which he can doubtless explore other markets. Some support for a member of the European family in desperate need for protection from a totalitarian bully busily engaged in shelling its civilians.
And even in the long term, it’s difficult to see much guarantee that the EU will consistently support Ukraine or even be particularly concerned to stand up for its interests. True, EU member states in eastern Europe with hard experience of Soviet control, such as Poland, may have a healthy mistrust of Russia’s pretensions. But the richer western EU countries, who largely control the organisation, on the whole don’t. If Germany or France, the leaders and paymasters of the EU, find it in their financial or political interest to appease Russia, they will; witness Germany’s refusal before the invasion to say or do anything that would seriously discompose Vladimir Putin or put a spanner in the works of Germany’s humming economy. And if this happens there is every chance that the EU will play along, as it has in the past.
The fact that the EU has apparently chosen not to single out Ukraine, and instead pointedly put its application on a par with those of Georgia and Moldova, itself says quite a lot. Both these latter countries have refused to be full-blooded in their support of Ukraine against the invader. Admittedly this is partly because of fear of the bear looking over their shoulder: both have suffered invasion and bullying; both have chunks of territory brazenly occupied by Russia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia; Transnistria in Moldova). But only partly so. In Georgia the ruling Georgian Dream party has a reputation for Russophilia, and there is a noticeable pro-Russian minority in Moldova. And in any case, an EU prepared to incorporate two countries that, for whatever reason, feel unable to antagonise Russia is not necessarily the most comfortable billet for Ukraine.
This is, of course, to say nothing of the other imponderables of possible EU membership. Ukraine already has what is effectively a free trade agreement with the EU, to which before the invasion some 40 per cent of its exports – mainly primary products and machinery – regularly went; if so, the trade case for entry is not enormously strong. One also suspects that with free movement and a well-educated population, EU membership would spark an immediate and debilitating talent drain to western Europe. However beautiful the restored Great Gate of Kiev may be, Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt would clearly be a pull for the young and ambitious in an economy where per capita GDP is less than $5,000 (£3,800).
An ideologically westward-looking Ukrainian minded to see Europe in terms of the EU could do worse than look at the slightly strained relations between the EU and Ukraine’s closest cultural relatives, the people of Poland. Warsaw, with its own long history of bullying by the bear in the east, has consistently found itself under attack from Brussels on account of its refusal to knuckle under to the EU’s bullying tendencies. It has fought back manfully at what it sees as interference with its constitutional and internal affairs by an overbearing European Commission and European Court. Would Ukraine, with its if anything stronger nationalism, its social conservatism and the strong influence of its Catholic and Orthodox churches, find its path much smoother? One rather doubts it.
The logic is clear. If and when Ukraine survives its present onslaught, it should think at least three times before submitting to an increasingly illiberal EU yoke. There is nothing wrong with a large European country of 45 million choosing to make its way independently. In the case of the people of Ukraine, indeed, it is almost certainly in their long-term interest.
