EU<\/a>\u00a0but not be part of it.<\/p>\nSuch a wider circle of European states would allow Brussels to bring vulnerable countries along Russia\u2019s border into the European fold more rapidly than full EU membership, which \u201cwould in reality take several years, and most likely several decades,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n
Such a \u201cpolitical community\u201d would, he said, \u201callow democratic European countries that believe in our core values a new space for political cooperation on security, energy, transport, infrastructure investment and free movement of people, especially our young people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea of concentric rings or \u201ctiers\u201d of European states, of a \u201cmultispeed Europe,\u201d has been suggested several times before, including by then-French President Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand in 1989. Then, though, the idea included Russia; it went nowhere. Macron has brought it up before. But now, with Russia on the march, it is the time to make it real, he said.<\/p>\n
In late February, four days after the Russian invasion, Ukraine formally applied to join the bloc, and in March,\u00a0EU\u00a0leaders \u201cacknowledged the European aspirations and the European choice of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
On April 8, in Kyiv, Ukraine\u2019s capital, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told Ukrainian President\u00a0Volodymyr Zelenskyy, \u201cDear Volodymyr, my message today is clear: Ukraine belongs in the European family.\u201d She said, \u201cThis is where your path toward the European Union begins.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even if European leaders decide to open negotiations with Ukraine, the process will be long, despite support for immediate membership from countries such as Poland and the Baltic states.<\/p>\n
On May 22, Cl\u00e9ment Beaune, France\u2019s Europe minister, told French radio: \u201cI don\u2019t want to offer Ukrainians any illusions or lies.\u201d He added: \u201cWe have to be honest. If you say Ukraine is going to join the\u00a0EU\u00a0in six months, or a year or two, you\u2019re lying. It\u2019s probably in 15 or 20 years \u2014 it takes a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said that given the difficulties, Ukraine should be offered \u201canother path\u201d in its relationship with Brussels.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy\u00a0has sharply rejected any other path than accelerated full membership for Ukraine in the EU. But his demand is unlikely to be met.<\/p>\n
A fast-track for Ukraine would probably further alienate the states in the Western Balkans, where the slow and cumbersome enlargement process \u201chas disillusioned many while Russia and China have expanded their influence in the region as a result,\u201d said Julia De Clerck-Sachsse of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.<\/p>\n
Proposals such as Macron\u2019s \u201ccan help kick-start a wider discussion\u201d among European leaders about how to better help and protect those who are not yet members, she said. \u201cAt the same time, they need to be careful that such ideas are not interpreted as a sort of \u2018enlargement light\u2019 that will undermine aspirations to full membership and further alienate\u201d countries already disappointed by the process.<\/p>\n
Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador to Washington and a fellow with Carnegie Europe, thinks it would be best to simply open the EU to all aspirants. But the \u201creal issue,\u201d he said, \u201cis that an EU of 35 members can\u2019t go on in the same way,\u201d requiring serious institutional reform and treaty change to function.<\/p>\n
For now, he said, \u201cno one has the answer.\u201d But he cautioned that \u201cwe cannot neglect Russia or forget it \u2014 we\u2019ve done that for years, and it has not turned out very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to face that question openly,\u201d he said, \u201cand come up with new ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Read the article on the site of Forbes India<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a question that will hang over a summit meeting of EU leaders starting Monday, and one made more urgent by Ukraine’s demand for fast-track accession talks to join<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[153],"class_list":["post-15393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-room","tag-153"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"As](\"https:\/\/www.forbesindia.com\/media\/images\/2022\/May\/img_186327_eu.jpg\" "\\"As")
Downtown Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, on Feb. 27, 2020. North Macedonia and Albania are the farthest along as full-fledged candidates for European Union membership. (Loulou d’Aki\/The New York Times)<\/span><\/p>\n