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They are​ calling fast-track Ukraine EU bid ‘nonsense.’ So why dangle it?

It’s supposed to soften the blow for lost NATO membership. But Kyiv is hardly ready and not all members are enthusiastic.

Ian Proud, Responsible Statecraft, Dec 18, 2025

Trying to accelerate Ukraine’s entry into the European Union makes sense as part of the U.S.-sponsored efforts to end the war with Russia. But there are two big obstacles to this happening by 2027: Ukraine isn’t ready, and Europe can’t afford it.

As part of ongoing talks to end the war in Ukraine, the Trump administration had advanced the idea that Ukraine be admitted into the European Union by 2027. On the surface, this appears a practical compromise, given Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s concession that Ukraine will drop its aspiration to join NATO.

However, the idea of accelerated entry for Ukraine has not been met with widespread enthusiasm in Europe itself. Diplomats in Brussels dismissed the notion as “nonsense: There needs to be an appetite for enlargement that isn’t there.”

There are two big problems with Ukraine’s rapid accession, the first being readiness and the second cost.

Firstly, Ukraine is nowhere near ready to meet the EU’s exacting requirements for membership. The process of joining the bloc is long and complex. At the start of November, in presenting its enlargement report, the EU said that it could admit new members as early as 2030, with Montenegro the most advanced in negotiations.

After it was formally granted candidate status in June 2022, Ukraine this year passed screening of its progress against the various chapters of the acquis (regulations) that it needs to pass before accession is granted. However, the EU enlargement report on Ukraine downgraded the country’s status from A+ to B, largely in light of the corruption scandal that first erupted in the summer and that rumbles on today.

The report indicated that Ukraine had made good progress on just 11 of the 33 chapters required for accession. It has made limited progress on 7 of the chapters, including on corruption, public procurement, company law and competition policy. It has yet to finalize negotiations on any of the chapters. And, of course, with war still raging, it is incredibly difficult to both agree and put in place the reforms needed to align itself with EU rules and standards. So, even if the war ended by Christmas, which despite the progress still appears optimistic, it would be unlikely to do all of the necessary work in the space of a year to be ready for accession.

The second, possibly more insurmountable challenge is cost.

In July, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz commented that Ukraine was unlikely to join before 2034. The EU has already formalized its next seven year budget through to that time, coming in at $2.35 trillion.

As I pointed out for Responsible Statecraft last year, Ukrainian membership of the EU would come with an enormous price tag……………………………………………. So the economic cost of delivering Ukrainian membership may not be politically viable any time soon, and certainly not before 2034, as the German premier has indicated.

……………………………………With practically all Russia-Ukraine economic ties severed over the past decade, Russian President Vladimir Putin has dropped his opposition to EU membership for Ukraine. An end to the war would allow Ukraine, finally, to start to reform and rebuild its bankrupt economy, and EU membership could accelerate that process.

That’s why Zelensky’s decision to drop the aspiration to NATO membership is such an important stepping stone. It has been abundantly clear since the start of the war that Russia’s NATO red line will never change. Russia has verbalized its opposition at least since Putin’s Munich Security Conference speech in 2007, when he said that NATO expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.” 

……………………………………..https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-european-union/

December 22, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Ukraine