Barley on EU accession: “There’s still a long way to go for Ukraine”

Even if Ukraine wants to join the EU as soon as possible, according to the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Barley, it will still take some time. In the daily topics she explained that many conditions had not yet been met.

The Vice-President of the EU Parliament, Katarina Barley, expects Ukraine to “still have a long way to go” before it can join the EU. The SPD politician explained in the daily topicsthat Ukraine must meet the same conditions as all other candidate countries.

“We will support Ukraine with everything we can and have – especially financially and economically,” she said. However, it will still be a while before admission to the EU. There are political and economic criteria as well as agreements in the legal systems. All three fields are far from being fulfilled. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also knows that “it can’t happen tomorrow”.

Candidate status important symbol

Barley described the EU perspective with the granting of candidate status to Ukraine as an extraordinary process, but also as an important symbol. However, she warned against too high hopes:

In the past, the EU made the mistake of admitting countries too quickly.

Barley went on to say that one also has to take into account that there are candidate countries that have been “waiting for accession for a very long time, that have already carried out an incredible number of reforms turn your head.”

In addition, the EU is not ready for admission in its current state. “We are 27 and the structures are no longer adapted to this number. We have to make changes.” In this context, she cited the abolition of the unanimity principle as a key example.