Bringing Kyiv into the bloc too quickly could prove counterproductive, argues former architect of neighbourhood policy
Including the EU’s mutual aid and defence clause in an associate membership status for Ukraine, as suggested by Germany, would doom the plan to failure, according to Pierre Mirel.
In a new book, Mirel, a Frenchman who spent 25 years as a European Commission official working on relations with countries around the bloc, including Croatia, Turkey and the Western Balkans, examines how the EU lost influence to Russia and China in its own backyard.
“A dependent Europe, made hostage and prey,” published in French by L’Harmattan, is an unflinching self-appraisal by one of the architects of EU neighbourhood policy of how that policy failed. He observes that the EU is now pursuing enlargement without the enthusiasm, or even the “arrogance,” that buoyed its post-Cold War expansion.
He points to EU disunity, obstruction from Hungary and Poland, and lofty promises that outstripped delivery among the main causes of failure.
