Allowing Ukraine into the EU is Not the Right Move for Now

Instead, a new security league should forge closer links between Europe’s countries

Shearwater’s Hans Kribbe and Luuk van Middelaar, the author and political theorist, write for The Economist. They argue that President Macron’s idea of a “European political community” has more merit than often thought. Most observers agree there are good strategic reasons for anchoring Ukraine more firmly in European structures. They’re not wrong. But there are equally strategic reasons why the EU is not up to the task, as they set out in the article.

EU leaders therefore have a choice. They can offer Ukraine upbeat but non-committal and misleading language on candidate status and membership, knowing that accession won’t happen any time soon, if indeed ever. This would put Ukraine on the path of “phantom accession”, the long road the EU has pursued with Turkey (30 years and counting) and in the Balkans. It is a frustrating and cynical process, which ends in acrimony.

Or leaders can be honest and offer membership to a new and lighter pan-European structure – call it the E40, after the long motorway connecting Calais to Ukraine. Such an intergovernmental club is no cure-all, but offers advantages. It is no substitute or antechamber for EU membership and should be raised outside the EU and be dedicated to security and the defence of common interests and values. Nor is it about new forms of market access, which Ukraine already has.

Instead, it is a concert of states that consider themselves part of Europe, geographically and in civilisational terms, working together at leader level and helping each other deal with common threats against democratic ways of life. For some years, there has been talk about creating a European Security Council, of which the UK could also be part. Such a council would be a good match for the E40, guiding the actions of willing members and also the EU in times of crisis.

Above all, the E40 would provide an anchor tying Ukraine to the European family of democratic states. And unlike the phantom road to EU membership, it would do this in ways that are real, truthful and immediate.