Brussels wants Ukraine to be a full member of the European Union in less than seven years as part of a dramatic expansion to also include the western Balkans.
A leading EU official said that it had set 2030 as a deadline for the “big bang”. The date fires the starting pistol in what will be a gruelling marathon for Brussels to agree the most radical programme of reforms, ranging from its budget to the European voting system, since the Lisbon treaty in 2007.
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, the EU’s highest decision-making body, comprising Europe’s leaders, announced the enlargement target date at a Balkans summit in Slovenia.
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“To be credible, I believe we must talk about timing and homework,” he told the Bled Strategic Forum, which includes leaders from Moldova, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia.
War-torn Ukraine would be the poorest EU member yet, with its fourth-largest population and the biggest geographical territory of all the bloc’s countries, making integration highly costly for other member states without a significant overhaul to Brussels budgets.
Membership for poor countries, such as Ukraine, will reignite simmering debates across the EU over the impact of free movement on lowering wages in existing members.
The gross monthly average wage in Ukraine was only €361 before Russia’s invasion compared with more than €4,000 in Germany or €1,700 in neighbouring Poland, posing the risk of large population flows to the West.
Michel said: “We must set ourselves a clear goal. I believe we must be ready — on both sides — by 2030 to enlarge. This is ambitious, but necessary. It shows that we are serious.”
EU leaders will hold a first debate on the reforms at an informal summit in the Spanish city of Granada this October.
“Integrating new members into our union won’t be easy,” Michel said. “It will affect our policies, our programmes, and their budgets. It will require political reforms. And political courage.”
Enlargement is a big challenge for the EU which has longstanding difficulties in reforming its structures, especially the budget and a voting system that is decided with clashes over national interests and individual vetoes.
In the run-up to the last wave of central and eastern European enlargement in 2004, the EU was wracked by disputes while overhauling the European treaty. Afterwards there were defeats in national referendums on deeper European integration.
To carry out the expansion in seven years’ time, the EU would need to overhaul voting weights, the highly sensitive question of the number of votes each country has, as well as totally reinvent the common agricultural policy and regional funding.
“We will have to adapt our institutional framework and procedures, so an enlarged EU is able to take efficient and timely decisions,” Michel said. “This will be a hard nut to crack. But there is no way to avoid this.”
Spain and Germany, for example, are pushing for national vetoes to be removed in key areas of foreign policy, a move that is political anathema in countries such as Poland or Hungary, as well as others.
Senior EU sources said that France and Germany see the reform question as potentially explosive because of deep divisions over European integration and the rise of populist parties across Europe.
“We need to share more policies and sovereignty,” one EU leader said privately after recent talks. “What kind of EU do we want? In my view it is a more federal EU.”
The reforms will pose the question of EU treaty reform leading to referendums and the potential for defeats such as the Dutch and French “no” votes in 2005.
