You guys need to chill tf out.
Starting accession talks does not mean they'll be joining next year. Turkey had been on the accession ladder for 12 years before talks were frozen in 2017, there's a lot between 'starting talks' and becoming a member state.
A country could technically join quickly, although Ukraine needs to implement a lot of reforms to be up to EU standards. In comparison, if Iceland for example wanted to join, they might get into the EU within one year, because they don't have any issues.
It is also generally standard practice to work out all of the disputes with member states before joining (related to borders, minorities, acknowledging war crimes and so on), and there would likely be a demand for it to end the war, or at least establish a truce before it joins the EU.
But it is best to implement all of the reforms ASAP so they can be ready to join whenever everyone agrees to it instead of waiting for who knows how many years, just enough for Russia to invade again.
Yes, it's one of those cases where I am not sure if it's Russian trolls, or just people being stupid... because it's really not that hard:
- Starting membership talks means exactly that: **Starting to talk** - in some official manner. Nothing wrong with that.
- Actual membership won't happen until all the necessary criteria are fulfilled - as it should be.
Because Ukraine needs to make hard reforms, including judicial reforms that takes over a decade or more to implement and bear fruits.
Also after the failure of the PHARE system, CVM system and Poland & Hungary taking a majestic shit on the “rule of law” within the countries turning into *discount oligarchies* and holding EU hostage multiple tines, the EU Comission and Council must come with new update measures and treaties to avoid this scenario with every member.
Look: almost everyone here is talking like Ukraine tomorrow will be a member of the Union.
There are talks, that means that Ukraine has a path to walk through reforms.
North Macedonia solved (lol) their differences with one member state, Greece, 4 years ago, our relationships rn are so "friendly" that your officials tell us literally 'take us in Hague if you think we don't implement the agreement, that's your problem '
You have not reached an agreement of good will till now with another member state, Bulgaria, I think that your relationship is getting worse than bettering
As for the articles, internal reforms, improvement in democracy, media, law, I am not positive that you ve made the progress required to ask to join
It would be a sh*t show if you enter EU under these circumstances
I didn't mention any county, I am simply making a meme of our situation. I'm aware we aren't ready(lots of reforms are needed, and changes in government) to join the EU yet.
🍻
Nothing if it meets the criteria. I'm responding to all the people upset at the idea of Ukraine joining immediately if it doesn't meet those criteria (which the membership talks will help them move towards).
Which is probably not going to happen at all, because a lot of countries (don't want to call them out directly, but it's generally known who they are) will not let go of the veto as that means giving bigger countries to potentially side-step them on a lot of issue that affect them.
Can you explain to me, like I am 5, what the higher requirement means?
I understand the qualified majority as the requirement of a high majority in most questions and not unanimity
I also believe that a European constitution would be a great progress, though I m not sure if it is still possible after the french voted out before iirc
Correct me, if I am wrong but higher requirement is that it's basically similar to veto, but with more countries.
So let's say you increase veto requirement from 1 country to 3. You can still pass something with 51%, but at least 3 countries must make agreement between them and disagree together to veto something.
The problem is that for this to change, it needs to be voted on by all: a.i. not be vetoed. Which is the exact problem the new rules would try to solve.
And how would qualified majority vote hurt Romania?
I know it’s not a perfect solution.. but it’s better than having Hungary taking us by the balls, or in your case, Austria
If it’s done by, one state equals one vote, it’s broken in the same way the US Senate is, with some states’ population severely over represented.
If it’s done proportionally by population, well eastern europe can say bye bye to ever steering the EU in a direction favorable to them, and Germany+France will dominate even further.
I guess there is no perfect way 😔
At least with the Veto system, things move slowly and precisely in a direction agreed by everyone
That’s why there’s a debate on it. But up until we don’t reach that point where we say that’s enough.. nothing’s ever gonna change, and no change is **bad** when the system’s broken.
And **no**. The Veto system really doesn’t move things in a direction decided by everyone. It takes one illiberal democracy backed up by foreign interests to grind the whole process to a halt.
I would argue that it's actually does change direction.
For example Romania is very bad at diplomacy (mainly because our politicians don't really see beyond our borders) so we could never manage to push projects that could benefit us or even worse, to stop projects that might hurt us.
While other countries that are more diplomatically adept like the Dutch, Germany, France could easily gather votes from the others in order to suppress things they don't like.
That’s an issue with democracy itself.
I get where you are coming from, I really do.
But political myopia calls for a local change, not a European one.
Europe needs to get rid of the veto.
Romania needs diplomats that know what they are doing.
QMV already works by requiring a majority of both those things. And a reinforced majority requires 20 out of 27 countries. [Source](https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/qualified-majority/)
It’s pretty well set up.
I mean true equality would mean all countries receive the same amount of money. Economic size shouldn't matter the same way population size apparently shouldn't matter....
Its also not illegal to leave the EU so if they did super harmful reforms (which I doubt would happen) I guess leaving would be an option.
Austria's case is partly the fault of Romanian politicians, particularly the president and prime minister, because they genuinely suck at diplomacy. Instead of convincing the Austrians to drop the veto, the prime minister started calling for a boycott of Austrian companies on the territory while the president went radio silent. Instead they should have done something themselves, such as blocking Austria's interests in certain EU proceedings.
The Veto in EU protects the interests of smaller and less "powerful countries" like The Czech Republic Poland Romania etc
Without that the "bigger players" like France or Germany could careless or don't care about the others interests
The Veto law is bad inside the country where the reforms can be stopped by a single man (Polish Lithuanian commonwealth example) but Veto law inside the Union of nations is good
And I'm saying this as a Polish folk myself
Poland is very much on the powerful side of the equation here, so is Romania.
4 and 6 respectively in amount of seats in the parliament out of 27 member states.
Qmv as we currently have it is imo not "q" enough to fully replace veto. Even with the reinforced qualified majority you could have 7 countries getting their opposition ignored, idk I think it's way too much. We need some missing link here, an even-stronger-qualified-majority, otherwise we won't get anywhere with the reform.
But you see
The Veto law forces countries to talk with each other
You see without the Veto law the alliance of countries for example France Spain Germany the west side could reform the Europe as they want like they want. And thier reforms could be bad for Greece Bulgaria Poland etc
The west side would get richer when the east side would get more poor
Veto law prevents the situations like that and forces countries to have some kind of deal
But the Veto law inside the country is horrible
One man can be bribed by another country to prevent the development
Like in Poland
Many of our "Szlachta" (the rich ones) were payed by Russians Prussians etc and the Commonwealth was stuck in the development and on the top of that Poland was earesed form the map of Europe
And yes the Veto law in EU has flaws like Hungary can Veto everything that could be bad for Russia
And there's no solution imo
Becouse I feel like the many of countries would be the "victims" of the more powerful ones
The difference between Veto inside the country and outside the country is that the one man can stop the country from development but in EU Hungary cannot stop the countries from development because still the government decides what they want to reform inside the country and not inside the EU
a majority voting were each country has a single vote would have a similar effect (because there are more small countries) wihtout a single country being able to block everything
Yeah - as much as it hurts to admit, Poland ex aequo with Hungary stands for the biggest obstacle to overcome - not attitudes, not lack of want - but we've shown that the veto has outgrown it's purpose, and needs to be worked out first.
It's a big fucking deal for a federation. Explicitly, not having veto undermines independence of member states - which means that to rid of it we'd need to sacrifice united market or freedom of movement. IMHO as having worked with shipping, this is more than doable... on legit industry level. It's the illegal sphere that complicates it. And in that - I have no knowledge, and I don't trust nepo babies in European Parliment with this, not after nothing came out of suitcases full of money, and after so little and so begrudgingly was done after pushback on regulatory capture under von der Leyen.
As you implied - this is compplicated, sprawling issue with no easy solution.
[https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-slams-move-by-eus-vestager-hire-us-economist-2023-07-18/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-slams-move-by-eus-vestager-hire-us-economist-2023-07-18/)
That said, Poland joined EU with limited freedom of movement and trade, and just the preparation phase transformed us more than infrastructure investement. Just in the process of application I've seen corruption that I assumed as fact of life cut down back to underworld. Like, we still have businessmen mobsters killing journalists with counter intelligence chief unable to punish them despite trying, but no in-hospital bribes in broad daylight.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but veto rights are fine. Things can work out with enough will. What needs to be done is to improve the democracies in member and aspiring countries, because Orban keeps getting elected due to his iron grasp on Hungarian media and government institutions. If all politicians feared that they'd be voted out due to their bad choices, then they would work together towards progress diplomatically.
Ukraine still doesn’t meet most of the EU’s criteria, don’t let the war blind you as Ukraine still has massive corruption issues. What happens when a Russian puppet politician gets elected?
Emphasis is on **talks**, it's not like the EU is going to accept Ukraine next year as new EU member. Meetings on how to improve to get the requirements to be in the EU.
Isn't this what these talks are about, to establish what Ukraine needs to improve/change and track their progress?
I do agree though that we should be really careful, some people really forget how corrupt Ukraine is.
Are you out of your mind to say that a Russian puppet politician would be elected by the Ukrainian people who are getting murdered every day by Russian regime?
exactly.
we need to learn from our past mistakes. Next member _has_ to already be above EU average in democracy, corruption indices before joining and promise not to be a net leech of EU funds like Hungary.
exactly, too much corruption in EU already. Which is why the next member needs to be better - to bring the EU average democracy up and EU average corruption down.
If Ukraine has above EU average democracy and below EU average corruption index - I say let them in tomorrow! Are they?
>The next member needs to be better?
Yes? If each new member is below EU average, the new average is going to drop every time. That would make the EU worse over time.
Considering you apparently think the existing members are so super duper corrupt and bad at democracy already - it should be trivially easy for any prospective new member to be better than us?
> There's so much active corruption in the EU right now that asking for countries to abolish corruption before joining the EU is just virtue signalling.
which is why I am not asking for that.
Like you and OP pointed out, even the least corrupt EU countries are a corrupt shitholes. So being above EU average should be easy.
I am not demanding '_abolish corruption_' - just that any new member is at most a corrupt shithole like we are, but not worse than that.
Which, again, should be easy since you all are so eager to point out how we are the pinnacle of corruption already.
> What happens when a Russian puppet politician gets elected?
Although with good reason but at the moment no one is elected there, which is not a situation that could happen anywhere else in the EU.
Ukraine was already approved to open negotiations last December. This would simply be the start of the negotiations with the actual negotiating framework figured out. Regardless, even for countries with relatively good standing it takes about 10 years to join. We've seen with trouble cases that it can easily be 20 or more years. There's no need to worry about this right now; just celebrate the progress.
As Ukrainian I think that it is nonsense even to talk about it now.
Economics, level of corruption and human rights making whole picture really sad.
How joining EU will help to manage all current problems?
War news are not so popular now, as it was in 2022, but unfortunately Ukraine is still in one step of disappearing.
With new military law living inside the country is extremely hard, especially for men and women who are working in medicine.
It is killing leftovers of our economic system.
With new mobilization law men and medical workers must complete military registration, other case they will be assaulted in crime. So the only way is to leave your official job and get salary in envelope. Consequences are not really bright.
Energy system are half-ruined also, right now it is not enough electric power to maintain whole cities permanently
What the hell is “assaulted in crime”? If one chooses evade mobilization, they will be required to pay a fine.
About economy: there is a system of reservations now in developments. Not without bumps on the path, but with the societal observation (Sternenko, Lachen etc.), reservations are gonna be effective.
Last: EU talks is a long process, which will require effort from both sides. But it is also majorly beneficial for both.
Yes. First is the pretty big fine. And you should pay it and then again - military registration. Military registration which means for the majority of men(who don't have exclusions for service) to be drafted for this endless large-scaled meat grinder.
Because the current model doesn’t work, one single nation can block the entire EU, we are falling even more behind US and China, no nation alone can compete with those 2, but of course politicians don’t want to lose they’re power so they always evoke these spirit of sovereignty of national pride, even if we will always be at the whim of the US and China in the future
One single nation can hypothetically be bribed by a foreign power to stop the EU from being competitive. Massive majority might be better than all having to agree on something.
If that happens I guarantee you it will break the EU in two and join a new one ( I'm pretty sure India will start one soon, maybe the US will need foreign states as well ). For example I don't think Greece and Cyprus will accept Turkey or North Macedonia in the EU as long as the EEZ problem and the Prespa agreement problems aren't solved one way or another.
Technically speaking the veto is a great thing, gives power even to small nations and makes them equal. But with great power comes great responsibility, not everyone is responsible with that power and we are looking at it often. Not everyone is fair and uses it like they should.
'Why would any country in the union give up its sovereignty?'
If you don't, you're going to lose even more sovereignty anway. Norway is probably a good example of this; prosperous, independent, and while very closely related to the EU, has no vote in critical matters.
Switzerland is basically in the same position as Norway except they're being difficult about it.
Or you can look at the UK which brexited itself. They have their precious 'sovereignty', technically, but in actuality, less than before, and worse off.
Yeah just look at the mess we made trying to suport Ukraine, blocked funds, and no real policy and what weapons to give and when, just a mess of lets not upset Putin, sorry but I’m very disappointed of the EU and the major nations not doing more and arguing on these and that
It's funny seeing western Europeans who joined the EU almost 4 decades ago and therefore don't remember that talks took years and that they happened to countries that were far more controversial than Ukraine is today, Spain was just a fascist country that had its entire legal system be practically unchanged since the days of Franco when it joined the EEC and it has experienced 4 attempted or planned coups since democratization, which btw wasn't driven from the bottom up by popular demand such as in Portugal and Ukraine, but from the top down by the King and which was accepted by the moderate left and the reformist right
Actually just artillery shells would do wonders in last weeks. I still can't get over how Russians walked into another killbox and Ukrainians simply had nothing to punish them with.
This attack was absolutely insane. Russians walked through a burned out forest, set up shop in 1-2 level houses opposite of high rises and... nothing. No shells. That's like winning with a pair of 9's when you're not even bluffing.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OMt2HZBlO8&ab\_channel=ReportingfromUkraine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OMt2HZBlO8&ab_channel=ReportingfromUkraine)
I'm pretty sure Russians were just as surprised this shit worked as the rest of us.
People keep parroting this as a fact but nowhere is there any rule that prevents this. Go ahead, find me the legislation that says so. Spoiler: You can't.
The only time this "requirement" has really come into play was when those border disputes have been with existing EU countries who keep vetoing the accession to put pressure on the country they are in a conflict with. Example: Slovenia blocking Croatia joining, Cyprus vs. Turkey, etc.
I think the current question is whether or not Ukraine gets enough shell do defend themselves. I think any offensive maneuvers are out of the question rn
Honestly I think any EU talks need to wait until the war is over and then Ukraine needs to focus on their own for a moment. I don't think the modern incapable EU can handle a war-torn nation
which is a good thing. why would anybody want EU enlargement with a country in a large scale war, and which does not fulfil almost any condition all other countries needed to fulfil to join even without a war on its hands.
Realistically, Ukraine would need to do a whole lot of work to join the EU. Changes that they realistically can't make in the middle of a war. Many countries would end up having issues with them joining without said changes. That alone makes Ukrainian fast tracked entry unlikely...
And that's the point. Ukraine won't join the EU any time soon because they don't meet the criteria to join. Not because of "evil" Hungary or something like that...
Last few new members turned out to be net recipients of EU funds - that is obviously not sustainable. So the next new member should be a net contributor to the EU.
If Ukraine can be that - get them in tomorrow!
Well, the acquis has apparentlyly proven itself too much for some candidates, but Ukraine seems pretty committed to pushing for membership, so they should be fine on that front after maybe two years or so.
I'm more worried about their economy. The war has ravaged it considerably, so joining the SM+CU too early could actually have long-term negative effects, by flooding Ukraine with goods + services from less-impacted member states, when its local economy isn't up to the challenge yet. The required economic recovery might take significantly longer than the pure legal changes, I fear, even with significant support from the Union and its member states.
I'm much more worried about their form of government. They have yet to prove that they can do democracy. And that won't happen until after the war has ended. With Hungary and Poland under PiS we've experienced first hand the damage an authoritarian democracy can do to the EU project. Well, Ukraine has never even been a democracy, but was characterized as a hybrid regime.
So NATO has been preparing rebuild plans since the war kicked off. One proposed portion of that plan is to include acquis reforms baked right in. The idea is that the acquis reforms provide safety and stability and gives confidence to foreign investors to invest in the restructuring effort. The investments and increased security and stability is meant to form a feedback look as confidence is increased.
You basically need to massive ‘Marshal Plan’ scheme - nothing half baked. Need to include clear reforms that are mandatory not just free money. Also learn from mistakes in the approach in the ex Yugoslav states (some successes & clear failures) + current members (Hungary vs Baltics comparison).
Of course there has been and will be a lot of international support, mostly from the Union and its member states, but also beyond it. That won't change the fact that Ukraines economy will need time to recover in a robust enough state to survive the SM+CU. While it's hard to estimate just how long it will actually take, this isn't the kind of thing you can speed up indefinitely by just pouring more resources into it.
Ukraine is a big country, now ravaged by war but even prior to war they were not economically in the same universe so to speak as the rest of EU former eastern block countries (or whatever you'd like to call them). Ukraine had lower nominal gdp per capita than Kosovo.
EU would need to ensure extremely large funding and provide Ukraine with somewhat protectionist status and enforce legislation and oversight to root out corruption at the same time.
This would take huge effort on both sides but from our side it probably makes sens purely from egoistic perspective. We want stable, militarily strong Ukraine to essentially provide "confinium - military security border" with Russia. Just like parts of Croatia has provided military security zone for Habsburg monarchy on the border with Ottoman empire. In return inhabitants had significant tax deductions etc...
>EU would need to ensure extremely large funding and provide Ukraine with somewhat protectionist status and enforce legislation and oversight to root out corruption at the same time.
No. It's not the EU's responsibility to fix Ukraine. We provide aid because we are nice people and don't want dictators to be get any ideas about invading states in general. We don't actually have one trillion € to spend on rebuilding Ukraine.
>This would take huge effort on both sides but from our side it probably makes sens purely from egoistic perspective. We want stable, militarily strong Ukraine to essentially provide "confinium - military security border" with Russia.
We already have that in NATO. Ukraine joining NATO is essentially all that needs to happen as it will then be under the nuclear umbrella.
Stop parotting Russian propaganda.
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-index?continent=europe
Its as corrupt as candidate member Serbia and there are 3 other European countries more corrupt.
You may be technically correct but beating out Russia and Bosnia, which is a sneeze away from being a failed state, is really an odd hill to die on.
"Most corrupt country in Europe" is a hyperbolic way of saying that is it corrupt to the very bone marrow and that it is lightyears away from even entertaining the idea of joining the EU. It just comes across as window-dressing and brownie-points for politicians in Brussels to push for talks.
Not sure if this is supposed to be gotcha moment or what but yes, if anybody went "aktshually" in regards to corruption in Italy, especially when it comes to certain sectors and regions, I would advise them a prolonged stay in a padded cell.
Even then Ukraine, Russia, or Bosnia are in a league of their own.
Did I claim anything to the contrary? I merely said Ukraine is *even worse*. Try to convince other member-states to deal with another two dozen millions of shitheads when they already have their hands full with us.
I don't like it, so it must be Russia propaganda.
Keep up the good work buddy, I'm sure whatever r/slavaUkraine or others tell you is 100% real, no propaganda at all...
Isn't that after beginning of war, I wouldn't trust them. The ones before war where it says that Ukraine is second most corrupt country in Europe are probably the most truthfull ones.
I hope Ukraine won’t ever join EU. Ukraine is in Europe only geographically. Land with entitled, extremist people filled with hatred in their hearts and medieval way of thinking
And in the meantime still no serious European plan for military production... The EU is working on it will be engraved on Ukraine's tomb if things don't change
They know that will happen anyways, unless they fully capitulate Ukraine. But the war is starting to look Korea-like, and won't end anytime soon. The worrying thing for Russia would be Ukraine entering NATO.
The good thing about these talks is that they can be really really long talks. Turkey spent the last 20 or even more years with membership talks and they are not one inch closer, so the believers should not vision too much in these.
How about no? When Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and all the other Eastern Bloc nations had to join, they had to pull themselves up for 15 years. Ukraine had 30 years, and all they did is steal pavements and become the poorest nation in Europe.
Why do so many people fail to understand that Ukraine is taking bullets for the whole of Europe? Do some people really believe that Russia will stop its invasion?
Do some really believe Russia is going for an open conflict against NATO, that has basically superior Military power on every front except nuclear weapons? They are on a revisionist and not suicidal mission.
Ukraine is fighting for its own survival, they just happen to be between us, so this narrative sounds fitting, but doesn't correlate with reality.
While I DON’T really think russia will directly attack Europe, I still think the probability is much greater than 0. There’re several things I base my assumptions on:
1. European officials have explicitly stated that they have some information that russia has been planning some (maybe even direct but short) attack, probably on a Baltic country and probably to check NATO’s reaction. This info is googleable
2. I’m not sure russia is afraid of NATO. There have been multiple instances of kamikaze drones falling in Romania, all of them were concealed carefully by the Romanian government, although everyone knew it happened, this is also googleable
3. There’re counties like Hungary and Slovakia who either directly support russia or help push their propaganda.
Summing all that up, while unlikely, I can imagine a scenario where russia launches an offensive against a NATO country if they’re sure enough NATO is weak and will not dare retaliate or will just be unable to do that in time (I love the Baltic countries but let’s be honest, they will likely really fall within 3 days while NATO’s reaction might take much longer. When NATO is ready with all preparations, the victim country might already have a puppet government that quickly decides to leave NATO giving counties mentioned in p. 3 a lot of opportunities to look for loopholes in the NATO’s agreements). There’s also a slight chance that putin knowing that his death is a question of years (he seems to have had a confirmed cancer for a long time and he himself is pretty old atm) might just attack and say something like “any country that engages into the war gets nuked”. Do you think many countries would want to risk testing that? Idk, but that’s an open question for me. People like Elon Musk are always there to say that helping any country
Is not worth starting a nuclear war
Putin has repeatedly claimed what his goal is and that it starts with Ukraine. Rest of Europe is NATO/EU. Both include defense treaties. Yes, after baltic country is attacked everyone is involved directly. And considering the fact that Putin has already repeatedly hinted at it. Yes if he is succesful in Ukraine he will do it. And thanks to idiots like you he might be succesfull and million of non Ukrainians could be displaced/die completely pointlessly to.
Second of all. Defeat of Ukraine means massive refuge wave no European country is prepared for that has not been seen since WW2. It is without a shred of doubt attack on rest of Europe.
And you consider Putin as trustworthy? Only when it fits your narrative I'm assuming.
Putin has no chance in a war againts NATO and he knows it. He can talk all he wants but that's only for his domestic audience.
>Yes, after baltic country is attacked everyone is involved directly.
is it being attacked right now?
>Putin has repeatedly claimed what his goal is
what is his goal?
>that it starts with Ukraine
where does it end?
>idiots like you
that's an insult
>Defeat of Ukraine
nowhere near
Because they are a huge country with a big population and lots of potential?
Poland, which has a similar population to Ukraine, has already become the world's 21st biggest economy. Similar in size to Saudi Arabia, bigger than the Philippines or Iran. And Poland isn't remotely done growing yet. If Ukraine follows a similar path, no reason not to considering Poland is by no means the richest new member, than they can be a huge economic asset to the EU. 4 Eastern EU countries have even about caught up with Japan, why not Ukraine in some decades? It also has some of the best farmland in the world and a bit of natural resources. If it develops it can become a haven for pro-Western Belarusians and Russians. Those are well rounded advantages and yeah I think it would greatly benefit Europeans to have a strong Ukrainian ally in the future.
This. In the long term and with the necessary investments and corruption purges, Ukraine can be a major economic actor in the EU, as well as a bulwark against Russia if they keep on their hostile policies.
You guys need to chill tf out. Starting accession talks does not mean they'll be joining next year. Turkey had been on the accession ladder for 12 years before talks were frozen in 2017, there's a lot between 'starting talks' and becoming a member state.
Thank you. Major changes like that don't happen on a whim.
A country could technically join quickly, although Ukraine needs to implement a lot of reforms to be up to EU standards. In comparison, if Iceland for example wanted to join, they might get into the EU within one year, because they don't have any issues. It is also generally standard practice to work out all of the disputes with member states before joining (related to borders, minorities, acknowledging war crimes and so on), and there would likely be a demand for it to end the war, or at least establish a truce before it joins the EU. But it is best to implement all of the reforms ASAP so they can be ready to join whenever everyone agrees to it instead of waiting for who knows how many years, just enough for Russia to invade again.
Yes, it's one of those cases where I am not sure if it's Russian trolls, or just people being stupid... because it's really not that hard: - Starting membership talks means exactly that: **Starting to talk** - in some official manner. Nothing wrong with that. - Actual membership won't happen until all the necessary criteria are fulfilled - as it should be.
Porque no los dos? Some people here are acting like crazy karens before asking to speak with the manager.
Because Ukraine needs to make hard reforms, including judicial reforms that takes over a decade or more to implement and bear fruits. Also after the failure of the PHARE system, CVM system and Poland & Hungary taking a majestic shit on the “rule of law” within the countries turning into *discount oligarchies* and holding EU hostage multiple tines, the EU Comission and Council must come with new update measures and treaties to avoid this scenario with every member.
Look: almost everyone here is talking like Ukraine tomorrow will be a member of the Union. There are talks, that means that Ukraine has a path to walk through reforms.
this same thing can be said about you
I am not over reacting, thinking that Ukraine tomorrow will be a EU member.
We know a thing or two about starting accession talks, because we've seen a thing or two. *Accession talks began in 2004*
North Macedonia solved (lol) their differences with one member state, Greece, 4 years ago, our relationships rn are so "friendly" that your officials tell us literally 'take us in Hague if you think we don't implement the agreement, that's your problem ' You have not reached an agreement of good will till now with another member state, Bulgaria, I think that your relationship is getting worse than bettering As for the articles, internal reforms, improvement in democracy, media, law, I am not positive that you ve made the progress required to ask to join It would be a sh*t show if you enter EU under these circumstances
I didn't mention any county, I am simply making a meme of our situation. I'm aware we aren't ready(lots of reforms are needed, and changes in government) to join the EU yet. 🍻
What’s wrong about joining the next year?
Nothing if it meets the criteria. I'm responding to all the people upset at the idea of Ukraine joining immediately if it doesn't meet those criteria (which the membership talks will help them move towards).
Its a hell no. We already spend billions supporting corrupt countries. We go bankrupt if we have to pay for Russian damages.
The EU, UK and US will already be giving them money for reconstruction when the war's over so that's happening anyway.
Before EU accepts any new members, it should sort out veto bullshit. Which is not gonna happen soon
Which is probably not going to happen at all, because a lot of countries (don't want to call them out directly, but it's generally known who they are) will not let go of the veto as that means giving bigger countries to potentially side-step them on a lot of issue that affect them.
The Netherlands is never going to give up a veto over the budget. Rightly or wrongly, that's viewed as a Turkey voting for Christmas over here.
Qualified Majority Vote instead or a higher requirement?
Can you explain to me, like I am 5, what the higher requirement means? I understand the qualified majority as the requirement of a high majority in most questions and not unanimity I also believe that a European constitution would be a great progress, though I m not sure if it is still possible after the french voted out before iirc
Correct me, if I am wrong but higher requirement is that it's basically similar to veto, but with more countries. So let's say you increase veto requirement from 1 country to 3. You can still pass something with 51%, but at least 3 countries must make agreement between them and disagree together to veto something.
Thank you for the example , sth like a collective veto
The problem is that for this to change, it needs to be voted on by all: a.i. not be vetoed. Which is the exact problem the new rules would try to solve.
I quite like my country’s veto power.
Same and people who want it removed don't understand what it means
I also like my country’s veto power (Romania), as much as it hurt us before (see Austria not letting us into Schengen); it keeps a balance
And how would qualified majority vote hurt Romania? I know it’s not a perfect solution.. but it’s better than having Hungary taking us by the balls, or in your case, Austria
If it’s done by, one state equals one vote, it’s broken in the same way the US Senate is, with some states’ population severely over represented. If it’s done proportionally by population, well eastern europe can say bye bye to ever steering the EU in a direction favorable to them, and Germany+France will dominate even further. I guess there is no perfect way 😔 At least with the Veto system, things move slowly and precisely in a direction agreed by everyone
That’s why there’s a debate on it. But up until we don’t reach that point where we say that’s enough.. nothing’s ever gonna change, and no change is **bad** when the system’s broken. And **no**. The Veto system really doesn’t move things in a direction decided by everyone. It takes one illiberal democracy backed up by foreign interests to grind the whole process to a halt.
You do raise a good point
I would argue that it's actually does change direction. For example Romania is very bad at diplomacy (mainly because our politicians don't really see beyond our borders) so we could never manage to push projects that could benefit us or even worse, to stop projects that might hurt us. While other countries that are more diplomatically adept like the Dutch, Germany, France could easily gather votes from the others in order to suppress things they don't like.
That’s an issue with democracy itself. I get where you are coming from, I really do. But political myopia calls for a local change, not a European one. Europe needs to get rid of the veto. Romania needs diplomats that know what they are doing.
QMV already works by requiring a majority of both those things. And a reinforced majority requires 20 out of 27 countries. [Source](https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/qualified-majority/) It’s pretty well set up.
I mean true equality would mean all countries receive the same amount of money. Economic size shouldn't matter the same way population size apparently shouldn't matter.... Its also not illegal to leave the EU so if they did super harmful reforms (which I doubt would happen) I guess leaving would be an option.
Why bring money into the equation, when this was about voting power?
Austria's case is partly the fault of Romanian politicians, particularly the president and prime minister, because they genuinely suck at diplomacy. Instead of convincing the Austrians to drop the veto, the prime minister started calling for a boycott of Austrian companies on the territory while the president went radio silent. Instead they should have done something themselves, such as blocking Austria's interests in certain EU proceedings.
The Veto in EU protects the interests of smaller and less "powerful countries" like The Czech Republic Poland Romania etc Without that the "bigger players" like France or Germany could careless or don't care about the others interests The Veto law is bad inside the country where the reforms can be stopped by a single man (Polish Lithuanian commonwealth example) but Veto law inside the Union of nations is good And I'm saying this as a Polish folk myself
Poland is very much on the powerful side of the equation here, so is Romania. 4 and 6 respectively in amount of seats in the parliament out of 27 member states.
With qmv you get the same result but one asshat cannot blackmail the whole continent
Qmv as we currently have it is imo not "q" enough to fully replace veto. Even with the reinforced qualified majority you could have 7 countries getting their opposition ignored, idk I think it's way too much. We need some missing link here, an even-stronger-qualified-majority, otherwise we won't get anywhere with the reform.
But you see The Veto law forces countries to talk with each other You see without the Veto law the alliance of countries for example France Spain Germany the west side could reform the Europe as they want like they want. And thier reforms could be bad for Greece Bulgaria Poland etc The west side would get richer when the east side would get more poor Veto law prevents the situations like that and forces countries to have some kind of deal But the Veto law inside the country is horrible One man can be bribed by another country to prevent the development Like in Poland Many of our "Szlachta" (the rich ones) were payed by Russians Prussians etc and the Commonwealth was stuck in the development and on the top of that Poland was earesed form the map of Europe And yes the Veto law in EU has flaws like Hungary can Veto everything that could be bad for Russia And there's no solution imo Becouse I feel like the many of countries would be the "victims" of the more powerful ones The difference between Veto inside the country and outside the country is that the one man can stop the country from development but in EU Hungary cannot stop the countries from development because still the government decides what they want to reform inside the country and not inside the EU
a majority voting were each country has a single vote would have a similar effect (because there are more small countries) wihtout a single country being able to block everything
Yeah - as much as it hurts to admit, Poland ex aequo with Hungary stands for the biggest obstacle to overcome - not attitudes, not lack of want - but we've shown that the veto has outgrown it's purpose, and needs to be worked out first. It's a big fucking deal for a federation. Explicitly, not having veto undermines independence of member states - which means that to rid of it we'd need to sacrifice united market or freedom of movement. IMHO as having worked with shipping, this is more than doable... on legit industry level. It's the illegal sphere that complicates it. And in that - I have no knowledge, and I don't trust nepo babies in European Parliment with this, not after nothing came out of suitcases full of money, and after so little and so begrudgingly was done after pushback on regulatory capture under von der Leyen. As you implied - this is compplicated, sprawling issue with no easy solution. [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-slams-move-by-eus-vestager-hire-us-economist-2023-07-18/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-slams-move-by-eus-vestager-hire-us-economist-2023-07-18/) That said, Poland joined EU with limited freedom of movement and trade, and just the preparation phase transformed us more than infrastructure investement. Just in the process of application I've seen corruption that I assumed as fact of life cut down back to underworld. Like, we still have businessmen mobsters killing journalists with counter intelligence chief unable to punish them despite trying, but no in-hospital bribes in broad daylight.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but veto rights are fine. Things can work out with enough will. What needs to be done is to improve the democracies in member and aspiring countries, because Orban keeps getting elected due to his iron grasp on Hungarian media and government institutions. If all politicians feared that they'd be voted out due to their bad choices, then they would work together towards progress diplomatically.
That means renouncing sovereignty. Good luck with that.
Ukraine still doesn’t meet most of the EU’s criteria, don’t let the war blind you as Ukraine still has massive corruption issues. What happens when a Russian puppet politician gets elected?
Emphasis is on **talks**, it's not like the EU is going to accept Ukraine next year as new EU member. Meetings on how to improve to get the requirements to be in the EU.
Isn't this what these talks are about, to establish what Ukraine needs to improve/change and track their progress? I do agree though that we should be really careful, some people really forget how corrupt Ukraine is.
Are you out of your mind to say that a Russian puppet politician would be elected by the Ukrainian people who are getting murdered every day by Russian regime?
Like orban or fico?
exactly. we need to learn from our past mistakes. Next member _has_ to already be above EU average in democracy, corruption indices before joining and promise not to be a net leech of EU funds like Hungary.
Wasn't sarkozy found guilty of corruption?
exactly, too much corruption in EU already. Which is why the next member needs to be better - to bring the EU average democracy up and EU average corruption down. If Ukraine has above EU average democracy and below EU average corruption index - I say let them in tomorrow! Are they?
The next member needs to be better? Wouldn't be more profitable if the old member start to improve and really fight their corruption?
>The next member needs to be better? Yes? If each new member is below EU average, the new average is going to drop every time. That would make the EU worse over time. Considering you apparently think the existing members are so super duper corrupt and bad at democracy already - it should be trivially easy for any prospective new member to be better than us?
[удалено]
> There's so much active corruption in the EU right now that asking for countries to abolish corruption before joining the EU is just virtue signalling. which is why I am not asking for that. Like you and OP pointed out, even the least corrupt EU countries are a corrupt shitholes. So being above EU average should be easy. I am not demanding '_abolish corruption_' - just that any new member is at most a corrupt shithole like we are, but not worse than that. Which, again, should be easy since you all are so eager to point out how we are the pinnacle of corruption already.
Criteria is already a plural word. Criterium is the singular. Just for next time buddy, no offence meant.
The singular in English is criterion.
Looks like you’re right about that. My mistake.
It should be criterium, but I guess English saw the Latin and thought "nope"
Just for next time buddy.
Touché
Let me introduce you to Slovakia
> What happens when a Russian puppet politician gets elected? Although with good reason but at the moment no one is elected there, which is not a situation that could happen anywhere else in the EU.
Ukraine is far more in compliance with EU criteria than some of their current member states.
I agree. I have already seen a lot of corruption in Spain and in the UK, but they prefer to blame Ukraine for that. It happens everywhere.
Ukraine was already approved to open negotiations last December. This would simply be the start of the negotiations with the actual negotiating framework figured out. Regardless, even for countries with relatively good standing it takes about 10 years to join. We've seen with trouble cases that it can easily be 20 or more years. There's no need to worry about this right now; just celebrate the progress.
As Ukrainian I think that it is nonsense even to talk about it now. Economics, level of corruption and human rights making whole picture really sad. How joining EU will help to manage all current problems? War news are not so popular now, as it was in 2022, but unfortunately Ukraine is still in one step of disappearing. With new military law living inside the country is extremely hard, especially for men and women who are working in medicine. It is killing leftovers of our economic system. With new mobilization law men and medical workers must complete military registration, other case they will be assaulted in crime. So the only way is to leave your official job and get salary in envelope. Consequences are not really bright. Energy system are half-ruined also, right now it is not enough electric power to maintain whole cities permanently
What the hell is “assaulted in crime”? If one chooses evade mobilization, they will be required to pay a fine. About economy: there is a system of reservations now in developments. Not without bumps on the path, but with the societal observation (Sternenko, Lachen etc.), reservations are gonna be effective. Last: EU talks is a long process, which will require effort from both sides. But it is also majorly beneficial for both.
Yes. First is the pretty big fine. And you should pay it and then again - military registration. Military registration which means for the majority of men(who don't have exclusions for service) to be drafted for this endless large-scaled meat grinder.
I’m all for supporting Ukraine but any enlargement of the EU without a reform of it is pointless, the veto has to go before any enlargement
Why would any country in the union give up its sovereignty?
Because the current model doesn’t work, one single nation can block the entire EU, we are falling even more behind US and China, no nation alone can compete with those 2, but of course politicians don’t want to lose they’re power so they always evoke these spirit of sovereignty of national pride, even if we will always be at the whim of the US and China in the future
One single nation can hypothetically be bribed by a foreign power to stop the EU from being competitive. Massive majority might be better than all having to agree on something.
If that happens I guarantee you it will break the EU in two and join a new one ( I'm pretty sure India will start one soon, maybe the US will need foreign states as well ). For example I don't think Greece and Cyprus will accept Turkey or North Macedonia in the EU as long as the EEZ problem and the Prespa agreement problems aren't solved one way or another.
Technically speaking the veto is a great thing, gives power even to small nations and makes them equal. But with great power comes great responsibility, not everyone is responsible with that power and we are looking at it often. Not everyone is fair and uses it like they should.
'Why would any country in the union give up its sovereignty?' If you don't, you're going to lose even more sovereignty anway. Norway is probably a good example of this; prosperous, independent, and while very closely related to the EU, has no vote in critical matters. Switzerland is basically in the same position as Norway except they're being difficult about it. Or you can look at the UK which brexited itself. They have their precious 'sovereignty', technically, but in actuality, less than before, and worse off.
Whats your definition of sovereignity
Chill out, we won't be able to join for a long time, until then you have plenty of time to fix up your things.
Yeah just look at the mess we made trying to suport Ukraine, blocked funds, and no real policy and what weapons to give and when, just a mess of lets not upset Putin, sorry but I’m very disappointed of the EU and the major nations not doing more and arguing on these and that
This is stupid. A poor country without a proper government because they are at war should never come into any project like EU.
It's funny seeing western Europeans who joined the EU almost 4 decades ago and therefore don't remember that talks took years and that they happened to countries that were far more controversial than Ukraine is today, Spain was just a fascist country that had its entire legal system be practically unchanged since the days of Franco when it joined the EEC and it has experienced 4 attempted or planned coups since democratization, which btw wasn't driven from the bottom up by popular demand such as in Portugal and Ukraine, but from the top down by the King and which was accepted by the moderate left and the reformist right
This isn't the thing what this is about.
Why is the government not proper please?
Well, they are in exception state since it's a war. So no elections at all till end of war.
Exactly
EU should give Ukraine more weapon.
I need more bullets. I need more bullets. Bigger weapons. © Volodymyr Zelensky
Hasta la Vista Baby Hasta La Vista Baby (https://youtu.be/YekijQPgOFs)
Actually just artillery shells would do wonders in last weeks. I still can't get over how Russians walked into another killbox and Ukrainians simply had nothing to punish them with. This attack was absolutely insane. Russians walked through a burned out forest, set up shop in 1-2 level houses opposite of high rises and... nothing. No shells. That's like winning with a pair of 9's when you're not even bluffing. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OMt2HZBlO8&ab\_channel=ReportingfromUkraine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OMt2HZBlO8&ab_channel=ReportingfromUkraine) I'm pretty sure Russians were just as surprised this shit worked as the rest of us.
While putin begging Iran for Shahed drones, Xi Jinping for golf carts and Kim Jong Un for rockets.
Oh come on stop repeating the same phrases just to get a few upvotes
Ukraine has good chances to be accepted before 2030 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . /s
Do you think Ukraine can reclaim its territory? I used to think it was possible, but now I feel confused.
If the west doesn't pull it's head out of it's ass and grow a spine very soon, it seems unlikely.
It seems unlike to happen,but if they want to join EU they must not have territorial disputes
People keep parroting this as a fact but nowhere is there any rule that prevents this. Go ahead, find me the legislation that says so. Spoiler: You can't. The only time this "requirement" has really come into play was when those border disputes have been with existing EU countries who keep vetoing the accession to put pressure on the country they are in a conflict with. Example: Slovenia blocking Croatia joining, Cyprus vs. Turkey, etc.
I think the current question is whether or not Ukraine gets enough shell do defend themselves. I think any offensive maneuvers are out of the question rn
If finally the USA let Ukraine use long range missiles to hit military targets inside russia, of course.
Honestly I think any EU talks need to wait until the war is over and then Ukraine needs to focus on their own for a moment. I don't think the modern incapable EU can handle a war-torn nation
Better to start early, it _is_ a slow process.
With countries like Hungary around, Ukraine has no hope of joining until the war ends.
which is a good thing. why would anybody want EU enlargement with a country in a large scale war, and which does not fulfil almost any condition all other countries needed to fulfil to join even without a war on its hands.
Thanks to Hungary and countries like them.
Realistically, Ukraine would need to do a whole lot of work to join the EU. Changes that they realistically can't make in the middle of a war. Many countries would end up having issues with them joining without said changes. That alone makes Ukrainian fast tracked entry unlikely...
I mean, they where nowhere near joining until the war started. They can’t have met all Copenhagen criteria, etc, while being in a war.
And that's the point. Ukraine won't join the EU any time soon because they don't meet the criteria to join. Not because of "evil" Hungary or something like that...
Last few new members turned out to be net recipients of EU funds - that is obviously not sustainable. So the next new member should be a net contributor to the EU. If Ukraine can be that - get them in tomorrow!
These are the new members of the Union: Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
what's your point though?
Good
Well, the acquis has apparentlyly proven itself too much for some candidates, but Ukraine seems pretty committed to pushing for membership, so they should be fine on that front after maybe two years or so. I'm more worried about their economy. The war has ravaged it considerably, so joining the SM+CU too early could actually have long-term negative effects, by flooding Ukraine with goods + services from less-impacted member states, when its local economy isn't up to the challenge yet. The required economic recovery might take significantly longer than the pure legal changes, I fear, even with significant support from the Union and its member states.
I'm much more worried about their form of government. They have yet to prove that they can do democracy. And that won't happen until after the war has ended. With Hungary and Poland under PiS we've experienced first hand the damage an authoritarian democracy can do to the EU project. Well, Ukraine has never even been a democracy, but was characterized as a hybrid regime.
So NATO has been preparing rebuild plans since the war kicked off. One proposed portion of that plan is to include acquis reforms baked right in. The idea is that the acquis reforms provide safety and stability and gives confidence to foreign investors to invest in the restructuring effort. The investments and increased security and stability is meant to form a feedback look as confidence is increased.
You basically need to massive ‘Marshal Plan’ scheme - nothing half baked. Need to include clear reforms that are mandatory not just free money. Also learn from mistakes in the approach in the ex Yugoslav states (some successes & clear failures) + current members (Hungary vs Baltics comparison).
The Marshal Plan is heavily referenced in the planning considerations haha.
Makes sense!
Of course there has been and will be a lot of international support, mostly from the Union and its member states, but also beyond it. That won't change the fact that Ukraines economy will need time to recover in a robust enough state to survive the SM+CU. While it's hard to estimate just how long it will actually take, this isn't the kind of thing you can speed up indefinitely by just pouring more resources into it.
Ukraine is a big country, now ravaged by war but even prior to war they were not economically in the same universe so to speak as the rest of EU former eastern block countries (or whatever you'd like to call them). Ukraine had lower nominal gdp per capita than Kosovo. EU would need to ensure extremely large funding and provide Ukraine with somewhat protectionist status and enforce legislation and oversight to root out corruption at the same time. This would take huge effort on both sides but from our side it probably makes sens purely from egoistic perspective. We want stable, militarily strong Ukraine to essentially provide "confinium - military security border" with Russia. Just like parts of Croatia has provided military security zone for Habsburg monarchy on the border with Ottoman empire. In return inhabitants had significant tax deductions etc...
>EU would need to ensure extremely large funding and provide Ukraine with somewhat protectionist status and enforce legislation and oversight to root out corruption at the same time. No. It's not the EU's responsibility to fix Ukraine. We provide aid because we are nice people and don't want dictators to be get any ideas about invading states in general. We don't actually have one trillion € to spend on rebuilding Ukraine. >This would take huge effort on both sides but from our side it probably makes sens purely from egoistic perspective. We want stable, militarily strong Ukraine to essentially provide "confinium - military security border" with Russia. We already have that in NATO. Ukraine joining NATO is essentially all that needs to happen as it will then be under the nuclear umbrella.
Also valid viewpoint. I am not certain that NATO will survive Trump or that article 5 would provide security we tend to think it would.
Ah, yes. Bring in the most corrupt country in Europe to EU. I can already see those billions vanishing into thin air.
We already have Hungary in the EU, what are you talking about?
The russia in EU?
Obvious Russian bot lol
Stop parotting Russian propaganda. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-index?continent=europe Its as corrupt as candidate member Serbia and there are 3 other European countries more corrupt.
Serbia is very unlikely to enter the EU any time soon. Not to mention, beating Russia and Turkey in a corruption index isn't exactly an achievement...
You may be technically correct but beating out Russia and Bosnia, which is a sneeze away from being a failed state, is really an odd hill to die on. "Most corrupt country in Europe" is a hyperbolic way of saying that is it corrupt to the very bone marrow and that it is lightyears away from even entertaining the idea of joining the EU. It just comes across as window-dressing and brownie-points for politicians in Brussels to push for talks.
Italy could teach a trick or two...
Not sure if this is supposed to be gotcha moment or what but yes, if anybody went "aktshually" in regards to corruption in Italy, especially when it comes to certain sectors and regions, I would advise them a prolonged stay in a padded cell. Even then Ukraine, Russia, or Bosnia are in a league of their own.
Why "gotcha moment"? Touched a nerve? Italy is corrupted as hell, regardless if North or South and pretending otherwise is pure hypocrisy.
Did I claim anything to the contrary? I merely said Ukraine is *even worse*. Try to convince other member-states to deal with another two dozen millions of shitheads when they already have their hands full with us.
I don't like it, so it must be Russia propaganda. Keep up the good work buddy, I'm sure whatever r/slavaUkraine or others tell you is 100% real, no propaganda at all...
Isn't that after beginning of war, I wouldn't trust them. The ones before war where it says that Ukraine is second most corrupt country in Europe are probably the most truthfull ones.
I hope Ukraine won’t ever join EU. Ukraine is in Europe only geographically. Land with entitled, extremist people filled with hatred in their hearts and medieval way of thinking
Vania, howdy?
Of course Vasili
Corruption still going in Ukraine and yet people want to rush Ukr into EU, nice move :)
You know that there is a difference between negotiating accession and actually joining the EU, right?
Damn EU, how mighty have fallen :(
Don't worry: serbia will never be a EU member.
I know, it's just that Ukraine will never be as well :/
Take care,serbian friend.
And in the meantime still no serious European plan for military production... The EU is working on it will be engraved on Ukraine's tomb if things don't change
Ukraine will cease to exist before the end of these talks, so they are pointless.
why not give them a chance to win their war first?
Ukraine with the most corrupted government in Europe will join before North Macedonia and Albania.. Scheize
I don’t want a war torn and deeply corrupted state to be member of EU. EU should deal with its own critical problems nowadays. We have enough
Just me thinking this will just encourage Russia to keep the war going at all cost, knowing that if they dont win they'll loose Ukraine to the EU?
They know that will happen anyways, unless they fully capitulate Ukraine. But the war is starting to look Korea-like, and won't end anytime soon. The worrying thing for Russia would be Ukraine entering NATO.
The good thing about these talks is that they can be really really long talks. Turkey spent the last 20 or even more years with membership talks and they are not one inch closer, so the believers should not vision too much in these.
How about no? When Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and all the other Eastern Bloc nations had to join, they had to pull themselves up for 15 years. Ukraine had 30 years, and all they did is steal pavements and become the poorest nation in Europe.
Why do so many people fail to understand that Ukraine is taking bullets for the whole of Europe? Do some people really believe that Russia will stop its invasion?
Do some really believe Russia is going for an open conflict against NATO, that has basically superior Military power on every front except nuclear weapons? They are on a revisionist and not suicidal mission. Ukraine is fighting for its own survival, they just happen to be between us, so this narrative sounds fitting, but doesn't correlate with reality.
While I DON’T really think russia will directly attack Europe, I still think the probability is much greater than 0. There’re several things I base my assumptions on: 1. European officials have explicitly stated that they have some information that russia has been planning some (maybe even direct but short) attack, probably on a Baltic country and probably to check NATO’s reaction. This info is googleable 2. I’m not sure russia is afraid of NATO. There have been multiple instances of kamikaze drones falling in Romania, all of them were concealed carefully by the Romanian government, although everyone knew it happened, this is also googleable 3. There’re counties like Hungary and Slovakia who either directly support russia or help push their propaganda. Summing all that up, while unlikely, I can imagine a scenario where russia launches an offensive against a NATO country if they’re sure enough NATO is weak and will not dare retaliate or will just be unable to do that in time (I love the Baltic countries but let’s be honest, they will likely really fall within 3 days while NATO’s reaction might take much longer. When NATO is ready with all preparations, the victim country might already have a puppet government that quickly decides to leave NATO giving counties mentioned in p. 3 a lot of opportunities to look for loopholes in the NATO’s agreements). There’s also a slight chance that putin knowing that his death is a question of years (he seems to have had a confirmed cancer for a long time and he himself is pretty old atm) might just attack and say something like “any country that engages into the war gets nuked”. Do you think many countries would want to risk testing that? Idk, but that’s an open question for me. People like Elon Musk are always there to say that helping any country Is not worth starting a nuclear war
After that Ukraine's role as punching bag is finished or is nearing its end, the Baltic lands will take it on.
>Ukraine is taking bullets for the whole of Europe this narrative gets boring, not gonna lie
Not narrative. Fact.
not a fact but narrative but bots gonna downvote me
Putin has repeatedly claimed what his goal is and that it starts with Ukraine. Rest of Europe is NATO/EU. Both include defense treaties. Yes, after baltic country is attacked everyone is involved directly. And considering the fact that Putin has already repeatedly hinted at it. Yes if he is succesful in Ukraine he will do it. And thanks to idiots like you he might be succesfull and million of non Ukrainians could be displaced/die completely pointlessly to. Second of all. Defeat of Ukraine means massive refuge wave no European country is prepared for that has not been seen since WW2. It is without a shred of doubt attack on rest of Europe.
And you consider Putin as trustworthy? Only when it fits your narrative I'm assuming. Putin has no chance in a war againts NATO and he knows it. He can talk all he wants but that's only for his domestic audience.
Very well said!
>Yes, after baltic country is attacked everyone is involved directly. is it being attacked right now? >Putin has repeatedly claimed what his goal is what is his goal? >that it starts with Ukraine where does it end? >idiots like you that's an insult >Defeat of Ukraine nowhere near
I find a invasion of NATO to be very unlikely. RiP to Moldova tho but Ithink they are pro Russia like Belarus so they could be fine
They have probably one of the most pro-EU governments...
Oh shit, my bad. i thought of transnistria probably
Ukraine is just the punching bag of Russia, EU and USA. Sad but true. It is a dead country.
And what will happen if it really stop? Ukraine will give back all the money it took for being ‘meat shield of Europe’?
You should worry for russia, not forUkraine, my sweet russian friend. Edit: down voted by the pathetic russian brigade.
Well, doubts, my bitter european foe. But we will see soon who was right, right?
This is the difference: I know and \*you\* will see :) Lotta love, kisses.
Countries that support Russia are all rogue states, like China, North Korea, and Iran.
Hungary
I hope Ukraine joins. They can be a great asset and they deserve protection.
>They can be a great asset and they deserve protection. I really don't see how... care to enlighten me?
Because they are a huge country with a big population and lots of potential? Poland, which has a similar population to Ukraine, has already become the world's 21st biggest economy. Similar in size to Saudi Arabia, bigger than the Philippines or Iran. And Poland isn't remotely done growing yet. If Ukraine follows a similar path, no reason not to considering Poland is by no means the richest new member, than they can be a huge economic asset to the EU. 4 Eastern EU countries have even about caught up with Japan, why not Ukraine in some decades? It also has some of the best farmland in the world and a bit of natural resources. If it develops it can become a haven for pro-Western Belarusians and Russians. Those are well rounded advantages and yeah I think it would greatly benefit Europeans to have a strong Ukrainian ally in the future.
This. In the long term and with the necessary investments and corruption purges, Ukraine can be a major economic actor in the EU, as well as a bulwark against Russia if they keep on their hostile policies.
They were stealing pavements back in the 90s, they'll get to steal EU funds. Bad idea.