{"id":77017,"date":"2022-03-11T14:39:25","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T19:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=77017"},"modified":"2022-03-11T15:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T20:03:09","slug":"ukraines-path-to-joining-european-union-still-a-long-road-brock-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2022\/03\/ukraines-path-to-joining-european-union-still-a-long-road-brock-expert\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s path to joining European Union still a long road: Brock expert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite an outpouring of European support for Ukraine in the wake of Russia\u2019s recent invasion, Ukraine\u2019s hope to fast-track its entry to the European Union (EU) was always likely to be a \u201cnon-starter,\u201d says Brock University expert Paul Hamilton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUkraine has enormous moral capital and the support of the European Parliament and the European Commission president, but the process of joining the EU is arduous and can take years,\u201d says Hamilton, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. \u201cThe joint statement of the European Council issued Thursday confirms that a special route to membership for Ukraine was never an option.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>European Union leaders meeting for a two-day summit in Versailles Thursday, March 10 expressed support for Ukraine but did not agree to fast-track the country\u2019s entry to the European Union.<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton explains that accession to the EU requires:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a treaty<\/li>\n<li>a timeline for adjusting to EU norms (known as the Copenhagen Criteria)<\/li>\n<li>harmonization of EU law with Ukrainian law in 35 policy areas, and<\/li>\n<li>a unanimous vote of the European Council, which includes the heads of all 27 member states.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The concerns expressed by European leaders at the summit about security, equity and thoroughness came as no surprise to Hamilton, either.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUkraine is not considered a fully consolidated democracy by international observers like Freedom House, which categorizes Ukraine as \u2018partly free\u2019 due to concerns about corruption, judicial independence and rule of law,\u201d says Hamilton. \u201cUkraine also does not have complete sovereignty over its entire territory, as Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 and the Donbass region has an armed separatist movement. This has to be a concern for the EU, and obviously, the recent invasion further complicates all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Hamilton believes that the Western reaction overall must have come as \u201ca shock\u201d to Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPerhaps Putin thought the West was too divided and too afraid of conflict to respond seriously to invasion,\u201d Hamilton says. \u201cThe response of the international community to the seizure of Crimea was mild compared to what we see today. Putin may also have judged the United States to be too divided to undertake a serious and firm response.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton notes that the U.S. has long supported European integration and bringing Ukraine into the Western geopolitical orbit, so the \u201cbipartisan, effective and quick\u201d actions taken by the U.S. administration are not surprising.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe horrific nature of the attack on Ukraine and the images we are seeing has galvanized U.S. public opinion,\u201d he says. \u201cA poll conducted last week by Reuters\/Ipsos showed substantial bipartisan majorities in favour of sanctions, even on oil, a no-fly zone and supplying weapons to Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite an outpouring of European support for Ukraine in the wake of Russia\u2019s recent invasion, Ukraine\u2019s hope to fast-track its entry to the European Union (EU) was always likely to be a \u201cnon-starter,\u201d says Brock University expert Paul Hamilton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":77018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,1,38],"tags":[4104,11295,522,4247,1676],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77017"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77025,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77017\/revisions\/77025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}