Ukraine in the EU? No, thanks.
I draw inspiration from the interview given to Affaritaliani.it by Defense Minister Guido Crosetto on the topic of Ukraine's possible entry into the European Union.
Crosetto correctly identifies one of the most obvious problems such a move would entail: the impact on the European agricultural sector. Ukraine is historically one of the continent's largest agricultural producers and covers a larger area than France. It is therefore difficult to imagine the entry of an agricultural giant of this size without provoking profound competitive tensions within the single market, further exacerbating the difficulties already affecting millions of European farmers.
This is a completely understandable consideration. However, the problem goes much deeper and doesn't just concern agriculture. It concerns the very nature of the European Union.
The European Community was born as a project of economic integration. The single market, the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people, and, subsequently, the introduction of the single currency were built around a fundamental principle: membership in the Union presupposes compliance with specific economic, institutional, and regulatory requirements.
For decades, European citizens were told that the accession of new countries could not be the result of a discretionary political choice, but rather represented the culmination of a long process of convergence. Precisely for this reason, accession procedures are complex, requiring years of negotiations and requiring compliance with rigorous criteria regarding the economy, public finances, legal system, administrative capacity, and the functioning of institutions.
In other words, the European Union has never been presented as an organization to which one joins for reasons of political expediency, but rather as a community founded on common rules and shared parameters.
In the case of Ukraine, however, the debate seems to have gradually shifted to a completely different level.
No one seriously argues that Kiev now possesses the economic, financial, and institutional characteristics traditionally required of other candidate countries. The main argument used in favor of accession is, in fact, geopolitical: supporting Ukraine in its confrontation with Russia, consolidating Europe's presence in Eastern Europe, and strengthening the Union's strategic role on the international stage.
These are politically legitimate motivations. But precisely because they are political, they require reflection that goes far beyond the specific case of Ukraine.
If a country can be admitted to the European Union primarily for strategic and geopolitical reasons, then this means that economic and institutional criteria no longer constitute the exclusive foundation of the enlargement process.
And if these criteria cease to be decisive when deciding who can join the Union, it becomes inevitable to ask why they continue to be considered mandatory when it comes to judging the states that are already part of it.
This is the real issue. For years, Brussels has been constantly reminding member states to comply with increasingly detailed parameters, quantitative targets, procedures, and constraints. Entire national economic policies are evaluated based on minimal deviations from the values set by European institutions. Governments are subjected to infringement procedures, warnings, and constant monitoring. The message has always been clear: rules come before politics.
Yet, in the case of Ukraine, the opposite principle seems to be asserting itself.
How can you keep a country under pressure for marginal differences from its budget targets and, at the same time, support the accession of a state that, for entirely understandable reasons related to the war and subsequent reconstruction, will not realistically be able to meet for many years—perhaps decades—the economic and institutional standards that the Union has always considered indispensable?
This is not a contingent issue.
Ukraine is a country devastated by a conflict that has compromised its infrastructure, energy networks, industrial plants, logistics connections, and production capacity. The challenge facing Kiev is not simply to return to pre-war levels, but to rebuild an economic and infrastructural system compatible with the standards required by the European Union.
No one is currently able to precisely quantify the overall cost of such a process. What seems certain is that it will be enormous in scope and will require a very long time.
However, this is not the main point either.
The real problem is that accession is being discussed independently of the completion of that process of convergence that in the past was considered essential.
A second, equally important consequence arises from this.
If geopolitical criteria become the determining factor, what objective principle will allow us to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable candidacies in the future? Why shouldn't the same reasoning be applied to other countries deemed strategically important? How coherently could economic and institutional criteria be invoked to reject other membership applications after arguing that, in particular circumstances, such criteria can be overridden by political considerations?
Once the principle that geopolitical expediency prevails over economic and institutional convergence is affirmed, the European Union's border inevitably becomes the result of a discretionary political decision and no longer the application of verifiable and equal parameters for all.
Europe, of course, has the right to make such a choice. What it cannot do is pretend that nothing will change.
It can continue to define itself as a community founded on economic convergence, shared discipline, institutional compatibility, and respect for common criteria. Or it can transform into a predominantly geopolitical entity in which strategic considerations prevail over the parameters that have characterized the integration process of recent decades.
Both options are legitimate.
What appears difficult to sustain is the claim to simultaneously maintain both approaches: absolute rigour when it comes to imposing obligations on Member States and extraordinary flexibility when it comes to deciding on the enlargement of the Union.
Ultimately, this issue isn't about Ukraine. It's about Europe. If the European Union believes that political, strategic, or solidarity-based reasons should prevail over the economic and institutional criteria that have guided the integration process over the past decades, it has every right to make that choice. But then it should also have the courage to say so openly.
Tell the citizens of Europe this. Amend the Treaties. Formally redefine its mission. Explain that the Union is no longer primarily a community founded on economic convergence and shared discipline, but a structure in which political considerations can prevail over criteria that until recently were considered mandatory.
Because if political criteria prevail when deciding who joins the Union, it becomes increasingly difficult to expect technical criteria to be absolute when judging those who are already part of it.
In that case, Brussels will no longer be able to ask European governments to consider certain economic parameters sacred, because the Union itself will have demonstrated that, when it deems it appropriate, those parameters can be subordinated to other needs.
An institution's credibility depends not on the severity of the rules it imposes, but on the consistency with which it applies them. If Europe wants to change its nature, let it do so. But let it say so clearly. Because the problem isn't changing the rules. The problem is continuing to pretend that they are inviolable for some and derogable for others.
Ukraine in the EU? No, thanks.
The article "Ukraine in the EU? No, thanks" comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/ucraina-nella-ue-no-grazie/ on Sun, 31 May 2026 11:12:46 +0000.