Ukraine exited the EU summit upon its entry. It belongs to the ‘family’, not the ‘club’. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte noted that it would take a long time to get there – “it would take years”. If the meeting in Versailles, in France, is to be considered “historic”, it will be more for a radical change of direction in defense and energy policies, which are on the table on this second day, than for a response to a Ukrainian request. There will be no shortcuts to joining.
The closing statement, which Charles Michel, President of the European Council, read with the chimes of three o’clock on Friday morning, was practically the same draft that the online newspaper Politico had revealed a few hours before the meeting began. The EU recognizes Ukraine’s “aspirations”, includes it in the “European family”, and has asked the Commission for comment. But do it “according to” what the treaties say.
Bureaucratic language that makes clear, in effect, that there will be no shortcut to Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, as explicitly requested by its President, Volodymyr Zelensky. As reported by the envoy of the Spanish newspaper “El Pais”, citing Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovicos, the Ukrainians do not leave the top even with the status of their candidate.
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