Why the Prospect for Ukraine to Join the European Union and NATO Must Be Seriously Considered

But the European Destiny Comes First

A protester wearing an EU flag face mask on the second night of euromaidan in Kiev, Ukraine, November 22, 2013. Picture: Ivan Bandura

In a previous article on this strategic blog, I explained why the continuation of the European Union’s enlargement policy was a necessity if we wanted to make the European Union a geostrategic power. There may be some coherence in closing the perspective if one considers that Europe should remain only a single market and if one rejects the idea of this third dimension of Europe. But for the former, this is the only way to be coherent, and it is appropriate that the supporters of Europe as a power stop paying lip service to it. This does not mean that the process is easy, ready-made, always possible and even less immediate.

The question is particularly acute for Ukraine—which does not officially have the status of a “candidate country”—whose revolution of Maidan (and before the Orange Revolution) it should be remembered was in the name of European values. The European reality is visible in most of Ukraine and it is not for nothing that, in an serious book published already in 2008, I had dared the fiction of a Ukrainian European Commissioner! I do not believe that this should remain a fiction. Let’s also remember that the revolution that put an end to Yanukovych’s corrupt power was largely provoked by the latter’s reversal, who, pressed by Putin’s people, had finally given up on the free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine.

Ukraine’s European perspective, however, telescopes with another request from Ukraine—as well as Georgia—, accepted in principle at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest (and reiterated without further clarification at the Brussels summit on June 14, 2021), to join the Washington Treaty organization. At the time, Germany and France—especially the former—were opposed to a firm and precise commitment: concretely a Membership Action Plan (MAP). They are still.

But if there is any telescoping, it is because this double demand obeys different objectives that can lead to confusion in the minds of EU leaders in particular. Both are legitimate, if not vital, and must be accepted in principle without any hesitation—if only to show that it is not in Moscow that this kind of decision must be taken—but we must not get the wrong narrative. Basically, in terms of advocacy, the European perspective must prevail over that of NATO. However, this is not always how things are presented. We will explain why.

Ukraine: a European narrative

Of course, we can always refer to history: the Lublin Triangle, inaugurated on July 28, 2020 between Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, alludes to the former Union of Lublin of 1569. The War for Ukraine of 1654-1667 already pitted Poland and Russia against each other for this territory that many considered European. But past history does not count in terms of law or the expression of the will of the people. To invoke history, in any sense, would be to lend the game to any revision of the borders by force. The reality is first that Ukraine is European by the will of the Ukrainian people, just as its independence from Russia was consecrated a first time in 1917, and above all by the referendum of December 1, 1991 where 90.5% of the voters voted in its favor, confirming the declaration of independence of August 24, 1991.

Ukraine is also European by contrast with Russia because of the constant holding, since 1991, of free and pluralist elections, of an affirmation, whether in 2004-2005 or in 2013-2014, of democratic requirements, of the weakness—contrary to a legend propagated by the propaganda of Moscow—of the extreme right-wing movements and by a freedom within the society of which testifies the free holding each year of a gay pride. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (that of the Kyiv Patriarchate), recognized as autocephalous—which includes more than 60% of Ukrainians—is also known for a tolerance and independence from power that the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), known for its close alliance with Putin's regime, does not have. The annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbass have logically increased this differentiation.

The affirmation of the European character of Ukraine is first of all linked to the Ukrainian people’s desire for freedom—one could say much the same thing for the people of Belarus who are fighting against the dictatorship of Lukashenka. While many other peoples have forgotten what the fight for freedom is all about, the Ukrainian people have been on the front lines since 2014. The Russian war on Ukraine has killed more than 14,000 people and created more than 1.6 million displaced persons. European leaders, especially in the West, should remind their unaware public of this reality more often. A large part of the Ukrainian people feel abandoned and frustrated by the sacrifices they have made—and they have largely lost confidence in most Western European leaders. The same is true for the Belarussian people who, in another way, are also very much alone in this fight for European values. Ukraine also felt alone when the Budapest Memorandum of December 5, 1994 was violated by Russia without serious consequences.

Finally, the recognition of this membership in Europe is all the more essential as it seems likely to preserve the specificity of the Ukrainian “nation” in relation to Russia. Although this is not new, a recent text by Vladimir Putin intended to declare Ukraine (and Belarus) as “Russian” while denying that Ukraine may have any specificity. Naturalism or ethnicism is always a way to deny the legitimacy of the political aspiration of peoples.

But there is another essential factor in the organization of this future European trajectory of Ukraine: to show that Kyiv is ready to make all the necessary efforts in terms of reform—the so-called re-appropriation of the acquis—in order to be a nation that has its full place in the EU. There is something eminently positive about stating this, in a clear and argued narrative. Ukraine will not demonstrate that it is asking for the protection of the EU—which is the case, by nature, in the request for NATO integration—but that it is ready to contribute something to it. This is all the more essential because a part of the European public, even if informed, besides having often forgotten that there is a still deadly war in Ukraine, 3 hours from Paris and 1.5 hour from Berlin, only sees Ukraine as a kind of “little Russia”, corrupted by mafia influence. A path to Europe, in addition to allowing the economy and the various sectors of activity to be brought up to European standards, will be a considerable asset in the fight against corruption and in favor of the independence of the judiciary that many Ukrainian NGOs are carrying.

Consequently, the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which came into force on 1 September 2017—the principle of deepening it was agreed on 1 February 2021—and the rules of the Eastern Partnership do not open up sufficient prospects and, to put it bluntly, are not sufficiently binding on both parties. While no one is unaware of the road ahead and the time it will take, it is to a proper candidacy that we must work.

NATO membership: unquestionable legitimacy

By contrast, the demand for NATO membership is therefore a demand for protection. For a country attacked by a criminal and revisionist power, it is legitimate. It should be remembered that NATO as such is a purely defensive alliance and that it is only used when a country is attacked—Putin’s Russia has always attacked others, but has never been attacked.

This request, like that of Georgia, was formulated and recognized as acceptable by the NATO Council of Bucharest which was held from 2 to 4 April 2008, a few months before the Russian aggression against Tbilisi and 6 years before the Russian war against Ukraine. The inane argument that one should not “provoke Moscow” does not hold in reality: Putin’s regime has been on the offensive all the more because it was not “provoked”. One could also imagine a counter-factual story: what would have happened if a MAP had been granted to these two countries as early as April 2008?

In addition to the necessary delivery of arms to Ukraine, which would allow it to better defend itself, or even to regain some ground, it is essential that NATO leaders revise their positions. A majority of member states seem to be in favor of this. Refusing to do so on the pretext of ongoing negotiations with Russia in the framework of the Normandy Format—when, up to now, the Minsk agreements have not produced any concrete results and Putin’s latest provocations do not augur the slightest change—would be another fool’s game. This delivery should also be accompanied by much closer surveillance of the Russian-Ukrainian border—I had suggested that this could be the task of the European Union if it wanted to be serious about its power objectives.

There remains the question of NATO’s classic jurisprudence, which states that a country at war with one of its neighbors cannot join the organization. It should be remembered that this jurisprudence applies to full membership, but not to the MAP, and that there is nothing to prevent transitional measures being devised to avoid the automatic involvement of the Allies in a conflict prior to membership. I have argued elsewhere for a reversal of the long-standing situation where Moscow sets the agenda. This is probably also the moment to prove that this can be the case.

European and American leaders must talk about Ukraine

Ukraine must make its voice better heard, and this is first and foremost the responsibility of its leaders and its representatives abroad. To do so, it must also forge a clear and exemplary narrative of European power: hence the importance first of a message on what it can bring to the EU and only then of a request for protection that we, as Europeans, have an obligation to grant. It must be said again: what happens in Europe outside the borders of the EU—in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia—is decisive for the fate of the EU itself. For the European Union to talk about power and do nothing about the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine would be a sinister masquerade.

But Europeans and North Americans must also talk more about Ukraine. Too many people still do not see Ukraine as a nation and do not identify it. They don’t know where Kyiv is. They ignore that Ukraine has an area slightly smaller than France and has about two thirds of its population. They know even less about its history and have not heard of the Holodomor or the Shoah by bullets. For some European leaders, stuck to the pretentious idea that only the so-called “great nations” count, Ukraine would be “less important” than Russia. It is therefore easy for them to forget Ukraine’s contribution to the defense of the European continent, and even easier for Putin to advance successfully its destructive narratives.

So, certainly, the Ukrainian political scene is sometimes desperate, corruption is not a myth, incoherent positions are frequent and its communication was often erratic. Ukrainian civil organizations are the first to be alarmed. There are also many of us abroad who want to defend Ukraine against itself. And more than anything else, we must speak out against the shameful stance, sometimes held by certain German leaders and others, which tends to fictitiously put the aggressor and the aggressed on the same level.

But in order to save Ukraine, which means saving the hope of freedom—and moreover in the immediate future, while a sporadic war continues, saving human lives—we must talk about it. It is desirable that democratic leaders, Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel’s successor in particular, go to Ukraine and defend the cause of freedom there.

This would be at least a first step that Ukrainians are waiting for—and others will have to follow. After seven years, it is more than urgent.