Our Institute calls on the European Council to immediately give Ukraine the status of a candidate for EU membership next week during the Brussels Summit.
We are confident that not only Ukraine but also the EU will benefit from this candidacy. Our expert Veronika Movchan explained why the EU should be interested in this decision and what it will get from giving Ukraine candidate status:
- The substantial leverage for guaranteeing "returns on investments". The candidate status reduces uncertainty and anchors the reform path in Ukraine. The EU gets a much better guarantee that the time and money invested before (incl. MFAs and technical assistance) and expected at the accelerated scale in the future are not spent with limited or no impact. Here, we can refer to the positive experience of transformation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The candidate status provided to Visegrad and the Baltic states proved to be a huge transformative power in the region. That also worked for Ukraine. The visa liberalisation action plan showed that the well-defined policy goals boost the reforms’ efficiency, increasing political commitments to reforms and societal pressure for changes.
- The better-protected positive economic impact for the EU business. The EU’s private investments in Ukraine’s reconstruction, modernisation, and green transformation could significantly boost the EU production as so many goods, including capital goods, will be needed. The candidate status will be the anchor, ensuring that the business and investment climate in Ukraine will be most convenient for the EU companies due to the shared regulatory framework. And Ukraine will swiftly proceed with the reinforcement of property rights protection, which is the weak element of its reform progress so far.
- The strong global message confirming that the EU is a value-driven community. The candidate status does not imply immediate membership, not even the fast membership. But granting Ukraine a candidate status will prove that the talks of the "European family" and common values are meaningful and followed by mutual commitments. For Ukraine, the candidate status now is of paramount importance to signal the EU’s fundamental support and to give hope for a better future that can lie ahead.
