The prerequisite for Ukraine joining the European Union is maintaining the balance between East and West

According to Webangah News quoted by Tasnim News agency, the war between Ukraine and Russia While it has entered its third year, relations between Russia and Ukraine have a long history, and the origin of the current conflict can be explained from the end of 2013.

The conflict that Ukraine’s application to join the European Union began and was suspended due to the opposition of Yanukovych, the president of Ukraine at the time, who was a close ally of Putin. But due to political and social opposition and the holding of protests that were turned into a color revolution by the opponents of the West and a revolution of dignity by the supporters, Yanukovych was removed from power and Zelensky came to work.

6 million refugees who left their homeland and fled to Europe after the start of the war and in addition to These are more than 5 million internally displaced Ukrainians and 17.6 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Many Ukrainians want to return to their country and want to grow trade with Europeans, but Necessity is effective if opportunity and security arise in Ukraine. Currently, Ukraine is dealing with the destruction of economic infrastructure, a lack of skilled labor and millions of immigrants who are psychologically damaged. percent of global exports and has been one of the largest exporters of agricultural products in the world. According to the European Union report, Ukraine is the fourth largest exporter of corn with 16 percent of global exports and the fifth It is a wheat exporter with 12% of global exports. Top recipients of Ukrainian grain include many countries with fragile sovereignty and global strategic importance, including Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

War in First, it led to a decrease in Ukrainian and global food exports. The initial disruption showed how important the “breadbasket of Ukraine” is. Ukraine also has abundant natural resources with the second largest (after Norway). Largely untapped known gas reserves in Europe.

Direct damage to Ukraine’s economy, as of September 2023, and human infrastructure from the Russian war amounts to $154.9 billion. However, recovery costs are significantly higher, with a rough estimate for reconstruction at $500 billion, which is more than twice Ukraine’s GDP.

After the invasion Russia to this country in 2022, the crisis became an essential issue for the security of Europe and the world. In February 2022, a week after the start of the war, Ukraine submitted a letter of application for EU membership, officially starting the process of joining the EU.

In June 2023, the E.U. It quickly granted Ukraine candidate status and announced in December that it had agreed to begin accession talks with Ukraine. While confirming Ukraine’s candidacy status in June 2023, the EU set seven conditions for Ukraine, including reforms to the Constitutional Court, the rule of law, anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, de-oligarization, media law and protection of national minorities. .

The European Union stressed that accession negotiations can only begin when these requirements are met. The Ukrainian government pledged to complete the reforms as soon as possible. In November 2023, 6 months after receiving candidate status, Ukraine reported to the EU that it had implemented four of the seven requirements and was making good progress on the remaining three. As a result, questions about the start of accession talks with Ukraine were raised during the December 2023 EU Council of Europe summit.

Before the summit, the situation was not so optimistic. The start of accession negotiations requires the unanimous decision of the European Council. However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, strongly opposes Ukraine’s EU membership.

Therefore, widely expected Orban was supposed to use the veto at the summit to prevent Ukraine from joining. However, surprisingly, when EU leaders voted on whether to start the accession process, Orban walked out of the room, meaning he abstained. As a result, accession negotiations between the European Union and Ukraine have begun, and Ukraine can now begin the second phase of the accession process.

The way forward for Ukraine’s EU membership

Although Ukraine has rewarded itself for its work on reforms and receiving EU approval to start accession negotiations received, there is still a long way to go.

According to statistics, the second phase of accession negotiations is much longer. On average, it takes about four years from the beginning of the accession negotiations to the official accession. In addition, Ukraine needs years to strengthen its judiciary and independent media, fight corruption, reform its security structure, and build sound public institutions to meet EU standards.

What Complicating matters is the fact that EU member states have different opinions on Ukraine’s accession, which makes the future of Ukraine’s accession fraught with uncertainty.

disagreement between the member states of the European Union

Although the basic consensus among the member states of the European Union to support Ukraine in the resistance in against Russia, Eastern and Western members differ in their specific approaches to dealing with Russia.

Western members, represented mainly by France and Germany, have tried to open dialogue with Russia because they are highly dependent on Russian energy supply. However, this effort has failed due to the lack of agreement among the Baltic members, who seek a significant Russian military withdrawal, as they are very sensitive to the military threat posed by Russia. This highlights the contradictions between member states on defense issues.

While the EU’s center of gravity and priorities shifted east after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, eastern members The European Union was not coherent in its policies. Poland and Hungary have completely opposite positions on the Union’s relations with Russia. While the former has played the main role in confronting Russia, the latter is still against the sanctions against the Russian government. This contradiction has broken the Visegrad group – consisting of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – which plays a leading role among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In addition, Even for Eastern European members who strongly support Ukraine in resisting Russia, such as Poland and Slovakia, there are still conflicts with Ukraine in the agricultural sector.

Poland and Slovakia to protect Against the influx of cheap Ukrainian products, farmers have announced that they will continue to boycott Ukrainian grain after the European Commission’s restrictive measures on Ukrainian grain end in September 2023.

These countries They also expressed their fear that Ukraine’s integration into the European single market could cause problems. The comments shocked the European Commission and set member states on a collision course with the rest of the EU. In short, there are many contradictions among the current members of the European Union on the issue of Ukraine. These contradictions in the fields of defense and agriculture have complicated Ukraine’s path to joining the European Union.

The need for institutional reforms European Union

Disagreements between member states over Ukraine’s accession to the European Union underscore the need for institutional reforms in the European Union. Currently, when it comes to sensitive governance issues such as the accession of a new member, common foreign and security policy and common defense, social security or social protection, a unanimous decision is required. This undermines efficient decision-making.

In the case of Ukraine, even if there is a basic consensus on the need to resist Russian aggression among most EU member states, A single country, Hungary, can disrupt the majority opinion of 26 other countries. This exposes the problem of the EU as an institution.

Therefore, several member states, such as France and Germany, hope to replace the EU’s mechanisms by applying Qualified Majority Voting (QMV). ) for more issues to make decision-making more efficient.

However, even on this project there are still major disagreements among member states. In the meantime, the European Union is trying to do its best to rebuild Ukraine after the war. The actions of the European Union to carry out such a process can be examined in four categories:

– Maximizing wartime resilience against continued Russian attacks

– Investing in Ukraine’s future economy and infrastructure

– Preparing Ukraine for rapid and mutually beneficial integration into the European Union

– The hardening of the situation, the economy and infrastructure of Ukraine and the deterrence of the future attack of Russia

In a general view, Ukraine is currently with more than 400 billion dollars in reconstruction costs and a It faces a war of attrition as well as seemingly insurmountable economic challenges to joining the European Union.

In the European Union, doubts about the eastward expansion of the EU and NATO are growing. It’s an increase fueled by the prospect of consolidating a large country that many see as poor and corrupt with a large agricultural sector. Even without compensating the war damages, Ukraine’s financial burden to align with the European Union is considerable. Ukraine’s membership in NATO should not harm and damage the balance between the West and the East and the maximum interests of countries such as Germany and Poland, which have strategic ties with Russia.

In general, Ukraine’s membership in both the European Union and NATO is unclear due to the lack of a clear vision regarding the war in Ukraine, and Ukraine is currently suffering due to the lack of strong infrastructure and serious damage in the economic sector and the lack of a liberal economy and democratic government. It does not benefit from the basic and important conditions for membership in the European Union.

At the same time, Ukraine’s membership in the European Union, if it pits the West and the East against each other and forces NATO To choose between friendship or the opposite of enmity with Russia is to the detriment of the West and Europe, and this is the reason for the postponement of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union, and Zelensky, knowing this, has renounced NATO.

It is worth noting that Zelensky is currently criticized by the Ukrainian people due to the war conditions, and in front of the European Union, by supporting him and not fueling the criticism and providing political support and raising The support of public opinion can be of great help in maintaining Zelenskiy’s political position.

It should not be ignored that what is important in the future perspective of the war in Ukraine is the elections of the United States. It is the United States of America and the victory of Trump or Biden, who plays a major role in the future of Ukraine. dir=”RTL”>end of message/