Ukraine and Moldova Negotiations with the European Union begin this Tuesday to, if everything goes smoothly, enter the block in the middle of the next decade.
The European chancellors give the starting signal to a negotiation that is technicalbut at the same time it is a challenge of the first magnitude to Russia, which attacked Ukraine to prevent the country from strengthening ties with the European Union and NATO. The road will be long and winding, There will be slowdowns and accelerations and political changes will create obstacles, but the European Union has never reversed such a negotiation.
The negotiation process is 35 chapters ranging from taxation to the environment passing through judicial independence or culture.
Waiting list
Every capital opens and closes with a unanimity vote of the Member States, which in the negotiation period could be more because before Ukraine the entry of some of the Balkan countries that have been negotiating for some time is expected, such as Montenegro, Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina or Kosovo.
When the 35 chapters are closed The agreement must be ratified by the European Parliament and all the national parliaments of the member states. Ukraine will decide whether to also consult its population by referendum, as some countries did before joining the European Union. Meanwhile, it must transpose more than 300,000 pages of European regulations into its legislation.
Ukraine would deserve most of the agricultural funds and cohesion and many countries that today are net recipients of these funds would become net contributors. One solution would be, some European officials dream, to convince rich Norway to enter at the same time as Ukraine. The contribution it would have to make would be almost equivalent to the funds that Ukraine should receive.
Since last December a European summit accepted that Ukraine and Moldova became candidate countries for accession, they already had to make some reforms to be able to start negotiating. kyiv had to make changes to the way the one who fights against corruption and in the protection of minorities (Russian-speaking, Hungarian and Polish).
European governments accelerated because the six-month Presidency of the Council of the European Union moves next week from Belgium to Hungary and Hungarians, the most pro-Russian in the European Unionthey had already warned that no progress would be made with them. Hungary does not want to upset Moscow and wants to focus its efforts on enlargement towards its neighbors in the Balkans.
Moldova, a Soviet creation
Moldova is a case not so far removed from the Ukrainian one because it brings another challenge to Russia. Moldova is a Soviet creation after World War II. It was the Romanian province of Bessarabia and Romania has been a member of the EU since 2007.
The big obstacle for Moldova is that does not control all its territory because it has embedded Transnistriaa practically independent enclave, a kind of country stuck in the Cold War and protected by Russian troops.
The European Union will change profoundly with the future entry of a giant like Ukraine. I would be the first country in the block by territory (its cultivated land is equivalent to the entire Italian territory) and the fifth by population (if it recovers the almost eight million who have fled since Russia launched its attack). It would also be the first European agrarian power.
Ukraine is very poor for European standards. The average Ukrainian is three times poorer than the average Romanian or Bulgarian, the poorest in the bloc.
And Ukraine is, above all, object of the Kremlin’s desire and that will continue as long as Russia does not have a truly democratic regime that respects its neighbor choosing its path. Ukraine is also a country at war and will not enter the block as long as he continues fighting.
To help her, European leaders approved in January a macro-financial aid package of 50 billion euros for the next four years, accompanied by another 20,000 million euros for weapons and ammunition. The European Union has already decided to tie its future to the Ukrainian one.
“The Europe of 36” (the current 27 in addition to the six in the Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia) would be a territorial giant with nearly 550 million inhabitants, that it would challenge Russia and that it would be poorer and more heterogeneous. A risky but unavoidable bet, consider the European institutions and national chancelleries, after Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
The message is first an open challenge to Russia, who is told that spheres of influence are not accepted and that each country freely decides its future. If Ukraine wants to be a member of the EU, like its small neighbor Moldova, it will be if it meets European conditions, whether Moscow likes it or not. Russia is left in Europe with only one partner, Belarus, whom he treats as a vassal.
