Several weeks ago I recall how Russia’s attempted conquest of Ukraine had rallied European countries together, and had given fresh life to an embattled EU. This glow of satisfaction in Brussels appears to have gone, and two of the reasons are France and Germany, the most important EU member states. German chancellor Olaf Scholz made positive noises on defence spending, energy and so forth in the immediate aftermath, but he appears to be getting criticism for not following through. As for French president Emmanuel Macron, his interventions into the horrible business seem almost designed to weaken Ukrainian martial spirit and bolster Russia’s hopes.
We are told that Ukraine wants to join the EU and NATO. It may still want to be under the NATO umbrella, in fact if not in writing, but what about its supposed desire for EU membership? It can see how the main countries in the EU act; it is able also to see the unhappiness of countries as varied as Poland and Greece. It must wonder why one of the most important members in the bloc, the UK – a founder member of the UN, NATO, etc – has left, and studied the reasons (loss of sovereignty, anger at creeping bureaucracy and Brussels centralisation) for us getting out. Relations between the UK and Ukraine are good, given the UK’s fulsome support for Kyiv in its agony. I am betting that as and when this war ends, Ukraine is not going to be rushing to apply for EU membership, and may spurn it if offered, but prefer a web of trade deals and pacts instead. But I may be wrong, and Ukraine will join, initially benefiting – its people may hope – from trade and lots of financial aid. At some point, as with so many countries, the love will end, and the grumbling will begin.
I have had this discussion with pro-EU pro-NATO Ukrainians many times.
NATO: no brainer.
EU: whilst EU was not a good fit for the United Kingdom (to put it mildly), Ukraine has very different characteristics. One thing I have heard from many Ukrainians is they believe being part of EU would help with the fight against corruption, quite rightly a hot button issue over there. This might sound odd to Brits who look at EU and do not see an institution known for probity (also to put it mildly), but these things are relative.
Having an alternative source for patronage that comes with strings attached is seen as good thing.
That said, the war & how it ends will change attitudes & political dynamics in ways currently hard to predict.
“Fulsome” does not mean “very full”, it means oleaginous. If anyone has given “fulsome” support to Ukraine it would be France and Germany. Ours has been much more practical.
Politically, I can see why the Ukraine at this moment would not dream of dropping the idea of joining the EU in public, both for its relations with the EU and lest it look like an act of weakness in the face of Putin.
However Zelensky embarrassed the Twitterati denialists by confirming yesterday the strong reports that he supports Boris and is delighted at his continuing to be PM. Another Ukraine friend is Poland, who can tell tales of the EU. As the OP article says, they are getting an education in how much the EU does what France and Germany want and how little those countries care about them.
Perry de Havilland (London) (June 8, 2022 at 7:59 am), I presume you point out to them that the EU will be to Ukrainian corruption as Biden was to it. It may be the US has at various times and places been a force for good as well as for evil in the fight against corruption there. However the EU offers no possibility of a Trump to interrupt its corruptocrats; they are much more impossible to vote out.
I’m guessing (and hoping) that when the war is over and time comes to think about membership, they will indeed think about it.
If it joined the EU, surely Ukraine by some distance would be the poorest member by far, so would likely be a net recipient of EU money for many, many years. Hence, I think it will continue to want to join the EU
they will indeed think about it
Do you foresee a referendum, free of corruption and excessive outside interference, being held?
No, I mean that as by Ukrainian standards, the EU is less corrupt than Ukraine, many Ukrainians think infrastructure funding coming from EU is less likely to get embezzled due to EU institutional oversight. And to some extent that is true, but probably less than Ukrainians fondly imagine.
Ukraine has actually made great strides in facing up to corruption, but they still have a very long way to go.
As the kids say these days, what Martin said. Bulgaria and Romania have received EU funds beyond their wildest dreams before they joined, and corruption has bloomed, not shrunk.
This in spades.
Joining the EU to get a decade or two of postwar reconstruction might well be worth the loss of sovereignty (Remembering back to Thomas Sowell – “There are no solutions, only trade offs”).
I mean, who knows how long the EU is going to last in it’s current form anyway? Might as well join the party while you can. Better to be inside the trade barrier and enjoy the premium than outside in the cold.
The other thing is that part of the settlement of the Ukrainian / Russian war may end up being agreement by Ukraine NOT to join NATO. In that circumstance, being a member of the EU might be the next best thing, since any subsequent invasion would trigger a flutter of “Russia has attacked the EU, what are we going to do?”
Better than nothing.
Joining would mean the educated and employable could leave. They could then work in other EU countries without a visa. Very nice for those who enjoy hot running water and electric power 24 hours -a-day.
Broadly agree with Perry, Martin, and John Galt.
About the EU being relatively less corrupt than Ukraine: it must be added that the EU is also a relatively free market compared to Ukraine.
Just look at the front cover of the EFW 2021 Report: the Ukraine sticks out like a sore thumb; even Russia and Belarus enjoy more economic freedom. (By the somewhat arbitrary, but not unreasonable, parameters of the Fraser Institute.)
Another thing to say is that there is a potential for a Central/Eastern European bloc inside the EU that could be much better able to defend its interests against the Paris-Berlin axis, than London ever was. Ukraine would add a lot of weight to such a bloc.
Which is also another reason for the EU to piss about with Ukraine for years saying they need to meet accession criteria, because the last thing the EU needs is another bolshie East European member like Poland and Hungary.
They can enter & work in Poland right now without a visa, woman can at least, not military age men for obvious reasons.
Any nation state seeking freedom should steer cleat of the eu. Its objective is to replace its members states and governments.
A couple of notes on the OP:
–Olaf Scholz is being rightly criticized, but he looks to me like a moral giant compared to Merkel and Schroeder.
The article at the link is from February 7, so it is very much the wrong article to link as evidence that
He could not possibly follow through in early February on commitments that he did not make until late February.
–WRT the second link, i am happy to see that it is a French source that criticizes Macron.
The lesson that he is said to have learned from the Versailles Treaty is very much mistaken. He should learn instead from General Sir Charles Napier:
UE is also a military organisation.
Perhaps, but then touring modern Bulgaria is rather more pleasant than touring modern Russia, and that was not true of the Soviet equivalents. Both Bulgaria and Romania are quite nice to travel around — things work, the shops have everything you might need etc.
While more money means more corruption, I think that as a % of the GDP that things are improving. Soviet Bulgaria was basically one giant mafia organisation, and Soviet Romania was run by a nut-case who spent money on crazy things. The life of the average person has improved out of sight over the last few decades, and some of that will be EU help and spending.
Money pick-pocketed from unwilling taxpayers in EU donor countries like the UK (formerly, thank god).
EU help my ass.
No, it was just a pretty typical dictatorship dependent on handouts from the Soviet Union. Think Cuba, but instead of sugar, it exported tomatoes and peppers to the USSR in exchange for discounted oil. The mafia times were the 90’s, when all sorts of extortion rackets flourished, and then privatization happened, and they laundered their money by buying state companies on the cheap, and then went legit, because that’s the better way to preserve your newly acquired fortune. Privatization was still a huge net benefit, but could have been so much better if it had not happened in an environment where criminals had all the money – like, say, in Poland, Hungary, or Czechoslovakia.
The biggest reason Bulgaria and Romania are doing much better than Russia is that after privatization government was weak, starved of funds, and dysfunctional, which allowed private business to flourish, while in Russia meddling by corrupt (mostly local) government smothered small business.
The other major reason most of Russia resembles a post-apocalitic dystopia is simply its geography. On a GDP per capita (both nominal and PPP) basis Russia is very close to Bulgaria and Romania, but on a, so to say, GDP per square kilometer it’s not even close. It’s hard to build even basic infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of villages far away from the nearest neighbor, when punishing winters and epic spring rasputitsa makes it impossible to do anything for half of the year.
Of course, it does not help that Russia decided to re-arm, and spent a fortune to (try to) build a military and a weapons industry that were absolutely unsuitable for anything but a replay of WW2. There is nothing as expensive as a second-best military.
“Very nice for those who enjoy hot running water and electric power 24 hours a day.”
I wonder how much longer those luxuries will be available to us?
Given the EUSSR’s fine performance in virtually anyting it taints, the only reason I can see for Ukraine to join the sinking ship would be a selective distribution of plain brown envelopes and member-funded overpaid non-jobs.
The sad thing is that UE state is not worse than UK state.
Yesterday came up with another great example of why the EU is bad for individual member states AND EVEN CANDIDATE MEMBERS!
Scholz Tells Serbia It Must Decide Between Europe and Russia
I mean, you can argue that Russian/Serbian relations (going back more than a century) are a bit of a hot potato just at this moment, but to turn around and say that Serbia has to choose between EU membership and it’s longstanding relationship with Russia is a bit rich, especially as it’s not that long since Germany was far more in bed with the Russians (thanks to Frau Merkel), as recently as February they were best buds (and probably still are, despite the rhetoric).
That’s the EU (and the Germans) to a tee. “Support the Current Thing or get lost”, regardless of history.
I would argue that Russia has been a far more reliable ally to Serbia than the EU ever could or would be.
@Snorri Godhi
I cannot take seriously anything claiming to review relative freedoms that puts Hong Kong under Beijing authority in best position in 2019.