EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell believes that the war in Ukraine has accelerated the process of enlargement EU.
In Spain, during an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers discussing assistance to warring Ukraine, the chief diplomat urged them to negotiate membership prospects with their counterparts from Ukraine and the Western Balkans within a month. He noted that this process requires a certain period of time, without giving any dates:
“I think the war in Ukraine had the side effect of speeding up the expansion process. Membership in the European Union, of course, must be earned. But at the same time, I think it would be good to fix a political goal, a certain horizon, in order to give impetus to this process. For our part, we in the EU must also be prepared for enlargement, which could lead to ten more members in the European Union.”
Already now there are questions about how this can be done without jeopardizing the entire union project. What will happen, for example, to the overall budget, which is already under pressure? Mathieu Drouant, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, admits that there is still a lot of work to be done for those wishing to join the EU:
“Future members are only now realizing the scope of the reforms they must implement. They are beginning to understand that EU enlargement will change them, what benefits they will receive, and what contribution they will need to make to coexistence and development with others. It is hard to imagine how Ukraine will be able to radically rebuild itself. We see that its citizens are truly dedicated to this cause, they have done a huge amount of work in one year, and this is quite impressive. But it is not yet clear how the EU plans to continue to contribute to this. There are many questions about the decision-making system within the EU, about how different programs will have to be changed, for example, on agriculture, given that Ukraine is a large agricultural country.”
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