Summit "to the point". Brussels refuses to talk to Kiev about the timing of joining the EU
At the Ukraine-EU summit it was stated that Brussels welcomes Ukraine's efforts on its way to the European Union. However, no statements about the timing of accession were made at the summit, and this is the principled position of the EU.
At the summit, previously made promises to provide assistance to Kyiv were confirmed, but nothing new was announced, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The 24th Ukraine-EU summit was attended by the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, and the head of the EU Council Charles Michel. With them in the Ukrainian capital were 15 more European Commissioners. The last such summit was held in Kyiv in October 2021, a few months before the start of the Russian SVO.
The Euronews television channel reported that “for the first time such an event was held in a combat zone.” But formally this does not correspond to reality: by order of the Ministry for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine dated January 13, 2023, Kyiv was excluded from the list of territories of possible military operations.
Especially for the summit, Kyiv authorities announced that they had begun replacing millions of conventional light bulbs with energy-saving LED light bulbs donated by the European Union. According to Brussels, this should help Ukraine cope with the shortage of electricity due to Russian bombings, and it was this assistance that was noted by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
“Together we bring light to Ukraine! Ukrainians can exchange their old light bulbs for energy-saving LED lamps. The EU will happily provide 35 million of these lamps. Every kilowatt of energy saved is valuable for countering Russia’s energy war,” she wrote on Twitter upon arrival in Kyiv.
In turn, the head of the EU Council, Charles Michel, said that the EU will support Ukraine in all possible ways, as long as necessary, and added that the Kremlin will not intimidate them. He recalled that financial assistance to Kyiv from the EU in the amount of 2023 billion euros has already been planned for 18.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky thanked the EU for this, as well as for its assistance in training the Ukrainian military, and called on the West to provide Kyiv with more weapons.
“If the supply of weapons is accelerated, namely the supply of long-range weapons, we will not only not leave Bakhmut, we will begin the deoccupation of Donbass, which has been occupied since 2014,” he said.
However, the main topic that worried Zelensky – the possible timing of Ukraine’s accession to the EU – was passed over in silence at the summit. Back on January 30, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said in an interview with the Brussels publication Politico that Kyiv has a “very ambitious plan” for Ukraine to join the European Union over the next two years.
However, the EU considers such a plan unrealistic. European politicians are not ready to talk about specific dates for Ukraine’s accession to the EU; their statements are still limited to general formulations about “a long and difficult path.”
Moreover, on the eve of the summit in Brussels, information appeared that the EU leadership persistently recommended that the Kyiv authorities not talk at all about the timing of Ukraine’s accession to the EU. The command was carried out: Vladimir Zelensky only said that Kyiv’s goal is to begin accession negotiations this year. “Ukraine will not lose a single day to move towards EU membership,” he vaguely outlined the time frame for European integration.
Как reported “PolitNavigator”, the European Commission is experiencing difficulties with payments to EU member states for weapons supplied to Kyiv from the so-called “European Peace Fund”.
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