Why the EU cannot admit Ukraine as a member

The EU may well receive Ukraine as a candidate for accession and then leave it to rot in the antechamber, just as happened with Turkey. Right now, the EU is structurally not equipped to deal with Ukraine.

Despite pro-Ukrainian virtue signalling at European summits and on social media, the tone is likely to change once member states are presented with the bill for Ukraine’s EU accession. Germany and the other net contributors to the union’s budget would have to bear the brunt of the cost – at a time when their own economic models are coming under strain. Would Poland and Hungary be happy to give up their current status as net recipients of funds from the EU budget for the sake of Ukraine? Would Italy agree to become an even larger net contributor?

As a country with 43 million inhabitants, Ukraine would displace Poland as the fifth-largest EU member, after Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Ukraine’s accession would dilute existing voting shares in the Council of Ministers, one of the two decision-making bodies of the EU.

I believe there is a solution. The EU could adopt a two-tier membership structure – a fortified eurozone at the centre and an outer group of members. Ukraine could join that second group. The frequently used word “associate member” would be too dismissive for what this would entail. A separation of the EU into inner and outer groupings would include the customs union, the single market, and structural and regional aid for everybody. If the core group assigned itself an autonomous fiscal union, it could raise funds, on the EU’s behalf, to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction. Ukraine, along with other countries in the outer group, would have full voting rights on all issues except the monetary and fiscal union, which would not include them. In turn, they would enjoy a higher degree of national sovereignty in economic policy.

I am not pretending that this would be easy to agree on. As long as people are under the delusion that the recovery fund can act as a blueprint for a common European fiscal policy, there will be no pressure in favour of a formal treaty change. But it is not possible for this delusion to persist forever. The cost of maintaining the status quo will eventually become apparent: it will be an EU that disappoints; an EU with a diminished global role; and an EU that does not include Ukraine.