Good morning. Angela Skujins here on Monday newsletter duties, with the pitfalls and processes of enlarging the European Union is stealing the focus in the Belgian capital.
My whipsmart colleague Luca Bertuzza has an exclusive out this morning looking at how the European Commission is tweaking proposals to reform the cumbersome method.
This is because, according to his reporting, the gamut of proposals put forth by the capitals has sidelined the EU executive. As it currently stands, the 27 capitals need to provide unanimous support for the opening and closing of any of the 35 policy chapters. This allows one member state to thwart the negotiations.
Membership lite. One buzzy idea to improve this was German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pitching "associate membership" status, which is shorthand for an EU aspirant country joining the bloc but not getting all the perks.
It was vehemently opposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy then and now, whose country has been vying to join the EU since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. The reason? He said he didn't want symbolic membership for Ukraine, as soldiers and civilians were not symbolically being killed by Russia.
