It will not be easy to integrate a huge war-torn country into current European structures, which is why the work must start now
One of Vladimir Putin’s mistakes when plotting his invasion of Ukraine was to underestimate European solidarity. The Russian president’s territorial aggression moved the continent’s centre of strategic gravity, but not in the direction he had intended. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, made an emergency application for EU membership within days of the invasion. The country’s candidacy was formally accepted within months.
At a summit in Kyiv last week, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said it was impossible to conceive of a future for the EU without Ukraine. That would not have been said before the war. Candidacy for EU membership is less important to Mr Zelenskiy’s war effort than military hardware, but weapons have also flowed from European states. Military aid and institutional integration are two arms of the same embrace. That reflects a psychological adjustment in the west – a shaking off of complacency and belated recognition that Mr Putin is a tyrant who cannot be appeased.
