EU summit in Brussels: Against Putin's claim

The enlargement of the EU can be viewed in two ways.

The first is the contractual requirements.

Any state in Europe can become a member, but it has to meet a number of political, legal and economic requirements.

A country cannot join as it is;

what is needed is a reform of the head and limbs.

In practice, this comes very close to founding a new country.

The other view is political and has always been an important factor in the history of European integration.

It is not a technocratic process, it was driven by the idea of ​​how Europe's order should look like.

After the Second World War, the main focus was on the reconciliation of Western Europe.

After the Cold War, there was also the goal of integrating East Central Europe into the liberal camp that had prevailed against communism.

Today it is almost forgotten that it was primarily Germany that wanted this step.

The admission of Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries was intended to create in the East what was already taken for granted in the West: an environment of cooperation and stability.

geopolitical reasons

The fact that Ukraine has now received candidate status falls primarily into the second category.

There may have been progress on the country's long journey towards the rule of law and competitiveness, but recognizable geopolitical reasons were decisive for the European Council.

The EU grants Ukraine, which has been seeking to join the West for so many years, the first small step towards EU membership in the face of the Russian incursion.

This is only symbolic at first, but it helps the country out of the precarious gap in Eastern Europe that Putin has long claimed.

He claimed that he didn't have anything against it, which you shouldn't believe any more than a lot of other things.

Nothing fears Putin more than the pluralism and freedom promoted by Western institutions like the EU.

The reason for his first attack on Ukraine in 2014 was not a move by NATO, which Moscow demonized.

At the time, Putin wanted to thwart Ukraine's rapprochement with the EU.

But in this field, too, he only achieves the opposite of what he intends to do.

With the invasion, he intended to end Ukraine's westward course for good, instead accelerating it in ways that were difficult to imagine before February 24.

The Berlin and Paris approach failed

The unanimity with which the decision was taken hides the extent to which the EU is changing its policy.

It has been expanding its cooperation with Eastern Europe for many years, but has long ruled out the prospect of membership.

This had a lot to do with "enlargement fatigue" in the EU;

But it would also have meant another conflict with Putin, with whom Berlin and Paris in particular wanted to maintain good relations.

This approach has now failed so dramatically that the line of Poles, Balts and others, who judge more strongly from their historical experience with Moscow, is gaining ground.

That will not make relations with Russia any easier.

As long as Putin is in power, however, there is no going back to what used to be normal.

In reality, long before the war, there was a rivalry between opposing ideas about the order of Europe.

Despite this, Ukraine will not become a member of the EU any time soon.

The necessary reforms are a huge challenge even in times of peace, it's not just about corruption and oligarchs.

For the foreseeable future, Kyiv will have to focus its energies on other tasks.

Nor would it be wise to admit a country that is in the midst of a serious, even military, territorial conflict.

After the accession of divided Cyprus, the EU found out what problems such constellations bring into the home.

It cannot even be ruled out that Putin will ultimately gain control of all of Ukraine in some form or other.

If she were already a member of the EU, he would have a seat at the Brussels Council table.

In contrast to the assertiveness that the EU shows in Eastern Europe, there is faintheartedness in the Western Balkans.

Strategically, this region is no less important, and Putin is also casting his nets here.

It is time to ease the burden on enlargement, which is often politically difficult, as Macron and others are proposing.

Intermediate steps or alternatives to full membership would not only be good prospects for Ukraine.

They would also be the right offer for a continent where (almost) everyone wants to live freely, but not everyone wants to live the same way.