The rhetoric in Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union is sharpening as Volodymyr Zelensky appears to be losing patience with reluctant bloc leaders.
Media organisations last February reported Kyiv’s “plea” to be granted “immediate accession via a new special procedure.” Perhaps Mr. Zelensky was correct to describe this request as “fair” and “possible”; EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen just the day before declared that Ukraine is “one of us and we want them in.”
Just shy of a year later, the Ukrainian leader was continuing gently to press the question. “I believe that Ukraine deserves to start negotiations on EU membership this year,” he said, fairly tentatively, following a meeting with Mrs. von der Leyen. Another three months on, and during a further visit by the commission president, it seems Mr. Zelensky has given up on polite requests.
Brussels-Kyiv relations have, he said, become “artificial.” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, just one week ago, had said that the Ukrainian military could succumb to Russia “in a matter of days” without further Western support; now, Mr. Zelensky suggests the nations are still not doing enough to help Ukraine towards victory. The press has marked the shift clearly, noting that Mr. Zelensky “demands” greater support from the EU and has “warned” that the path to membership must be clear. The leader himself said:
The time has come to remove the artificial political uncertainty in the relations between Ukraine and the EU. The time has come to take a positive decision on the opening of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU.
On Twitter, too, and in his regular video speeches, Mr. Zelensky is going all-out to show “Ukraine has always been, is, and will be a part of” Europe. In a conference on Wednesday, he said that “it is here, in Ukraine, that the world will see what Europe is capable of. Here, in Ukraine, we will have the maximum of Europe in Europe—the maximum possible of what European values are capable of, what European and global cooperation is capable of.”
Through this messaging, Mr. Zelensky appears to be placing the ball firmly in the EU’s court. But with bloc officials concerned about corruption in Ukraine and Emmanuel Macron highlighting that accession could take “several decades,” it is likely that the rhetorical escalation has some way to go yet.
