
The European Council's decision to start accession negotiations with Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova and to grant candidate status to Georgia indicates Brussels' desire to play a more active role in foreign policy. There are several reasons for this.
Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine has demonstrated that the EU is readier to act than NATO. It sounds paradoxical, but in 2022 it was the European Union that made the unprecedented decision to provide military assistance to Ukraine. Moreover, for the first time, the EU has supported a non-EU state that is actually at war with a nuclear-armed state - Russia. In fact, starting 2023, the EU has decided to provide assistance to the Republic of Moldova for the creation of an effective anti-aircraft defense system.
The protracted Russian-Ukrainian war (2023 will be the first full year of Europe's biggest military confrontation since World War II) is forcing the EU to reconsider its options. As it turns out, it is much easier to promise Ukraine a million shells by March 2024 than to implement these plans. As a result, Ukraine has so far received only a third of the promised amount of ammunition, which, among other things, fueled Putin's aggressive statements. The Kremlin has clearly taken note of the slow pace of recovery of the European military-industrial compound and is watching with deep satisfaction the confrontation between Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress.
Paradoxically, Russia's main hope to slow down the pace of EU enlargement is given by the democratic procedures in various countries. In short, elections. For example, 2023 brought the victory of the Smer-SD parties in Slovakia and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, while their leaders, Robert Fico and Geert Wilders, have not hidden their skeptical attitude towards Ukraine. It should also be noted that this whole issue of European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine was not a mainstream topic for European elites before February 24, 2022. The Russian invasion made the so-called "Ukrainian question" important to many European states, and this will continue to be true.
It is no coincidence that the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban positions himself as the main skeptic with regard to Ukraine's EU accession prospects. For him, Ukraine looks, among other things, like a potential competitor for access to EU development funds in the near future. For now, Budapest has managed not only to successfully demonstrate to the Kremlin the consistency of its position, but also to obtain from Brussels the disbursement of 10 billion euros worth of financial aid. Perhaps that is precisely why Viktor Orban has stated that he will have many more opportunities to veto Ukraine's movement along the path to European integration. And, most likely, this is the reason why the Hungarian Prime Minister has blocked the European Union's allocation of 50 billion euros to Ukraine over the next 4 years. The EU leaders will resume talks on this issue on February 1, 2024, and the factor regarding the failure to deliver the requested amounts of shells will certainly play its part.
However, at the last meeting of the European Commission, Viktor Orban preferred to step back during the decisive vote, thus raising the prestige of his German colleague Olaf Scholz and preserving the possibility of a dialogue between Brussels and Budapest. Admittedly, this passivity has several explanations:
- The enlargement of the European Union to 30+ member states is one of Ursula von der Leyen's initiatives, which she evoked in the European Parliament back in September, and will obviously be one of the main themes of the European People's Party's election campaign in the run-up to the European Parliament elections. This situation has both advantages and disadvantages, but it would be strange for the EPP to abandon this topic.
- We must realize that during the elections for the European Parliament, Orban, Wilders and many other politicians will be the opponents of the European People's Party. The possibility that they will use the EU enlargement policy to criticize the actions of the dominant political force in the European Union can’t be excluded.
- Even under the most favorable circumstances, Ukraine and Moldova are unlikely to become EU members before 2030 (Chisinau admits this, while Kyiv prefers to exude optimism, without much reason).
- The post-Soviet republics will compete with the Western Balkans countries, which have a strong lobby secured by Germany and Austria.
- The process of enlargement of the European Union today seems more like a bright Christmas fairy tale than a real chance to change the situation in the Old World. At the same time, we should understand that the integration project will be incomplete without the accession of Ukraine – the largest European state. This is well understood at the Kremlin and should be realized in Brussels as well.