The European Union flag flies in Brussels. Photo: Reuters
The European summit on Thursday and Friday comes with a clear path to be given to Ukraine and Moldova the status of the candidate countries to accession after the agreement reached on Tuesday afternoon from European foreign ministers.
As proposed by the European Commission, Ukraine and Moldova will be the sixth and seventh country queuing to enter the European Union. A queue without shifts That does not advance for nearly a decade, when Croatia joined in 2014.
be a candidate country it is a political sign to the receiving country and in the case of Ukraine and Moldova (Georgia is currently excluded) in Russia. Brussels tells Moscow that it wants to create the European Union continues to grow eastward and that it will not respect the alleged Russian influence zones.
It is important as such but it does not foreshadow an income. Montenegro, much smaller, more stable, richerit’s been 14 years as a candidate country and has not even covered 10%.
The status of an EU member country does not prefigure entry into the bloc. Photo: Reuters
Albania or North Macedonia are experiencing similar situations. Serbia, which looks almost more to Moscow than to Brussels, takes no step. And no one believes, neither in Ankara nor in the European capital, that Turkey can become a member state as long as its political conditions are not change profoundly.
From now on a path is opening which, as the European Commission and the main European capitals demonstrate, He hasn’t been anywhere in a long time.. Governments will agree at this summit to grant candidate country status knowing that they will have it dozens of opportunities to block a possible income.
a long process
Ukraine will begin to negotiate in months or years a minimum of 34 belonging chapters. Serbia has 35, the latest on its relations with Kosovo. Each chapter opens and closes with a report from the European Commission and the unanimous vote of the governments of the member states.
When the 34 chapters are approved, the Commission will make another report, which will have to be approved again by the governments and the European Parliament. The process ends with national ratifications in the current 27 Member States. In some (France) a referendum will even be necessary.
the way is like that long, full of obstacles, heavy and it takes patience and that in Ukraine (and Moldova) the same pro-European goal is undoubtedly maintained. If countries turn to Moscow (as they have done in the past on some occasions due to the election results) everything will stop again.
The road to joining the club of 27 is long and full of obstacles. Photo: AFP
Ukraine and Moldova will have this status as linked candidate countries a list of reforms. For now, Ukraine has seven, Moldova nine. Reforms are common to have a rule of law worthy of the name, to reduce the power of the oligarchs or to fight corruption.
The summit, as agreed by foreign ministers, will give Kiev and Chisinau “until the end of the year” to put them into operation. Without explaining what will happen if they don’t.
The president of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen said this week the path can also be very short, as the case of Slovakia has shown. The Slovaks obtained candidate country status in 1999 and in 2004 they arrived in time to join the great enlargement to the east. 18 years ago that and that European Union he had an appetite for enlargement which he has already lost.
Ukraine and Moldova will see this week ajar that door, but the Balkans will have to keep waiting while Russia and China move their pawns there and into the European Union it is losing credibility.
The summit will begin with a meeting with the leaders of six Balkan countries, all with curbed European aspirations For years. The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, thus tries to show them that they are not rejected.
The meeting of foreign ministers on Tuesday saw how some of them asked those countries received a signal to show them that their membership is not postponed To Kalends Graecas.
Slovenia – with a new progressive and pro-European government moving away from the Visegrad countries – and Croatia are asking that Bosnia also receive the candidate country status requested in 2016 and that no one in Brussels wanted to hear.
North Macedonia has been waiting for years as a candidate without being able to start negotiating its chapters because Bulgaria refuses.
Neither the changes of government in Bulgaria nor the agreements between North Macedonia and Greece have made it possible to lift this blockade, which Bulgaria justifies in historical disputes. In recent days, Charles Michel went to Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo, on a tour in which he couldn’t promise anything.
Brussels, special for Clarin
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Source: Clarin
