Ukraine is one step away from the start of the long-awaited EU accession negotiations. European officials are working to ensure that the official opening of Ukraine’s accession negotiations with the European Union takes place at the end of June, before the EU Council presidency passes from Belgium to our neighbor, Hungary. And the EU has been sending positive signals almost daily that this will happen.

However, after that, Ukraine will face new challenges that are much more difficult than the formal decision to start negotiations. Ukraine’s friends are already warning about this. The President of Latvia, in particular, expects difficult negotiations with Ukraine, including due to significant changes in the EU’s economic policy.

There are other factors that could both (potentially) delay the start of negotiations and (more realistically) complicate the accession talks, and thus Ukraine’s path to full membership. For Yevropeiska Pravda, Viktoriia Didach, Advocacy Manager of the RPR Coalition, and Ivan Posylnyi, Project Manager of the Coalition, analyzed and explained these risks.

Western Balkans as a challenge for Ukraine

The latest country to join the EU was the Western Balkan Croatia, which became a member in 2013. However, the process of EU enlargement in the Western Balkans, which began more than twenty years ago, is still far from complete.

Thus, only in March 2024, the European Council gave the green light to start accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina if it fulfills a number of conditions. In addition, 4 other Balkan states have candidate status, and Kosovo is a potential candidate with a recognized European perspective. Although Ukraine (and Moldova, with which we are united in a single “package”) are currently receiving the most attention, our states are newcomers who have rapidly broken into the company of old candidates. Therefore, Kyiv’s claims of rapid progress toward membership receive different responses.

Until recently, there was no consensus within the EU on how further enlargement should take place.

Some members of the bloc (including Austria, Croatia, Hungary, and Slovenia) advocated the idea of Ukraine and Moldova’s European integration alongside the progress of at least some of the Balkan states. For Ukraine’s friends, however, this option does not seem acceptable, as it would make Ukraine dependent on the progress of both Moldova and the Balkan states, none of which is currently showing success in this area; as for Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are doubts about its ability to negotiate at the current stage.

However, the main approach remains the merit-based principle, or the principle of progress based on the achievements of each candidate. This approach envisages individual progress of each candidate country on the way to accession, without interdependence.

The latest communications from the European Commission so far indicate a willingness to evaluate Ukraine’s progress in this way – individually and independently of other candidates.

However, nothing prevents some EU members from slowing down Ukraine’s European integration.

And this is bad news.

Less friendly countries may well continue to insist that Ukraine should not overtake the Western Balkan states, some of which have been waiting in the wings for more than 20 years.

This may result in delays in the accession process.

Finally, it is still unclear why the President of the European Commission postponed the approval of the negotiation framework for Ukraine until June, although technically there were no obstacles to its approval in the spring. But the good news is that another postponement is less likely. The rhetoric in Brussels and the capitals is now noticeably leaning toward both approving the negotiation framework and starting negotiations in June.

Farmers’ protests? There have been and there will be more!

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has led to massive emigration of Ukrainians to the European Union, created problems for Ukrainian agricultural exports, and has also affected the economies of EU countries, including an increase in inflation in 2022. Although the European economy improved in 2023, inflation in the service sector remains high.

At the same time, changes in the EU’s agricultural regulations (transition to a green economy) and changes in the global environment led to protests by European farmers in Poland, France, the Czech Republic, and others. Some of them were inclined to shift the “blame” to Ukrainian imports, even when there were no grounds for this.

These protests have already caused significant losses to Ukraine. But in reality, these were only the “first bells”.

It is worth emphasizing that there are reasonable expectations that the socio-economic situation, including in the EU agricultural sector, will soon stabilize. The European Commission’s latest forecasts for GDP growth and inflation slowdown in 2024 are positive. And the end of the long-term blockade of the Polish-Ukrainian border by Polish farmers, which was more political than economic, is an example of a successful resolution of the dispute at the level of both governments and agricultural associations of the two countries.

However, the sustainability of these improvements remains an open question, especially given Russian subversive activities, which are expected to increase in the coming months.

In addition, farmers’ protests will continue to occur.

Their impact on our European integration should not be underestimated, as Ukraine’s accession to the EU will undoubtedly affect the agricultural policy of the European Union itself.

Today, there are about 40 million hectares of agricultural land in Ukraine (including the temporarily occupied and mined territories). This is about a quarter of the total agricultural land area of all 27 EU member states and much more than in any single EU state. The current common agricultural policy of the EU provides for subsidies to farmers from the European budget, including on a per-hectare basis. However, it would be unrealistic to apply these rules to Ukraine at once.

Discussions on the reform of the EU’s agricultural policy are just beginning, and negotiations on the terms of Ukraine’s participation in it are still ahead. But it is unlikely to be an easy road.

EU reform or Ukraine’s accession?

The need to reform the European Union has long been openly discussed in both capitals and European institutions. In November, the European Parliament approved a report on the need for reform, calling for, among other things, changes in decision-making processes.

Until recently, the EU was dominated by the idea that the reform process should precede enlargement, i.e., EU reform first, then Ukraine’s accession.

Recently, however, the position within the EU has changed: enlargement before the reform is completed is seen as a realistic option. The European Commission’s analysis shows that the EU is capable of enlargement within the existing model of treaties and rules, and thus our accession and the reform of the Union can move in parallel rather than sequential processes.

Does this mean that the problem of an unreformed EU will no longer be a concern for us?

Unfortunately, no.

Despite the change in assessments of reform as a “prerequisite for Ukraine’s accession,” this does not change the fact that the lack of reform of the EU’s decision-making mechanism hinders our integration. After all, when even the current procedural steps require finding consensus among member states, including those whose leaders use the topic of Ukraine’s accession as a tool to achieve their own political goals, this can significantly harm the negotiation process.

That is why in the coming years, our European integration will largely depend on successful communication with both the EU institutions and individual member states whose governments may not support the idea of Ukraine’s early membership.

Elections and Russia’s influence

The European Union has now entered a period of elections that are taking place amid numerous scandals. The spread of disinformation, bribery of MEPs, exposure of intelligence networks, and detention of spies have accompanied the campaign in recent months.

One of the main beneficiaries of these developments is Russia, which recruits MEPs as “agents of influence,” funds far-right groups, organizes disinformation campaigns, and has considerable experience in this regard.

In January, a major Russian disinformation campaign was exposed in Germany. In February, the European Parliament warned that Russia was trying to “sow division” in Europe. And in the spring, the leaders of Belgium and the Czech Republic publicly informed the EU leadership of intelligence and available evidence of active subversion by a network of Russian spies and agents.

Although some of these activities are disclosed, many of Russia’s operations achieve their goals.

But not only this, but also the global trend of increasing popularity of the far right and populists should lead to the fact that their presence in the European Parliament may increase. Although experts predict that these parties will have relatively little influence in the EP, an increase in their number in the next EU parliament is almost certain.

And this is another reason not only to start, but also to move forward with negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU as soon as possible, thus creating effective resistance to anti-Ukrainian voices in the new European Parliament.

In general, crises give us the opportunity for change for the better in problematic situations. To take advantage of this opportunity, we need to be proactive, even in extremely difficult conditions, by strengthening our work on building democratic institutions and not hesitate to tell the European audience about our successes, defending Ukraine’s interests. And this experience will definitely come in handy when the EU gets a new Ukrainian star.

This publication was prepared by the Reanimation Package of Reforms Coalition with the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Ukraine Responsive and Accountable Politics Program (U-RAP), implemented by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the experts and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) or the United States Government.