EU membership may prove a mirage for Ukraine despite optimism of Kyiv visit

The leaders of France and Ukraine ended a chill in their relations on Thursday with emphatic hugs and handshakes in Kyiv. “We turned the page,” Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, referring to months of tension with Emmanuel Macron over the French president’s perceived willingness to make concessions to Russia.

Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi travelled 10 hours in a mahogany-panelled Orient Express-style train, one day before the European Commission was to grant Ukraine candidate status, three days before the French legislative election and two weeks before the end of Macron’s six-month presidency of the EU.

Boris Johnson, Ursula von der Leyen, António Guterres and a host of foreign notables have beaten a path to Kyiv since the February 24th invasion. The absence of Macron and Scholz had become embarrassing. Better late than never.

In the meantime, the verb “to Macron” entered the Ukrainian language, as a synonym for empty rhetoric. The Dictionary of Contemporary Ukrainian provides a second definition: “To show oneself to be very worried about a situation, to make sure that everyone sees how worried you are, and to do nothing.”

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Russians have also adopted “to Macron”, Le Monde reported. The Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Soloviev ridiculed the French president on television, saying the verb means “to telephone often for no reason”.

For years, Macron demonstrated prescience in predicting “the return of tragic history”. Yet he has an unfortunate tendency to rub people the wrong way, first his own citizens, now Ukrainians, with remarks that are perceived to be arrogant or contemptuous.

In April, after Joe Biden called Russia’s war on Ukraine a genocide, Macron refused to use the word and instead described the two countries as “brother peoples”. Ukrainian intellectuals were infuriated by what they saw as Macron’s adherence to Soviet mythology.

But it was Macron’s warning that Russia must not be humiliated, in a speech to the European Parliament in May and again in an interview with French journalists at the beginning of June, that most antagonised Ukrainians. “Appeals to avoid humiliating Russia can only humiliate France,” said Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Macron’s statement seemed to validate Putin’s portrayal of Russia as the threatened party, at a time when thousands of Ukrainians are dying, and whole cities are being devastated. A French colleague who has just returned from two months in Ukraine says that every time Ukrainians heard her French accent, they immediately brought up Macron’s remark about not humiliating Russia.

France is in fact doing a great deal for Ukraine. Hours after his love fest with Zelenskiy, Macron met a team of forensic scientists from the French gendarmerie who were among the first dispatched to Ukraine to investigate alleged Russian war crimes.

Macron sent 500 troops to Romania to reinforce Nato’s eastern flank. He used the French presidency of the EU to push for six waves of economic sanctions and an embargo on Russian oil. In Kyiv he announced that France would send six more highly accurate Caesar self-propelled artillery pieces, in addition to 12 already delivered. These are, however, a fraction of the 1,000 artillery pieces that Ukraine pleaded for on June 13th.

When he abandoned hope of admission to Nato, Zelenskiy intensified efforts to join the EU. Through sheer force of character, the man in the khaki T-shirt cowed the European leaders. They spoke like chastened children, repeating that they wanted Ukraine to win the war, that they would not negotiate in Ukraine’s stead, that Ukraine was “part of the European family” and that they supported Ukraine’s candidacy for EU membership.

The statements in Kyiv are powerful symbols, but EU membership may prove a mirage, as it has for Turkey. Macron says it could take decades and has linked Ukraine’s application to those of Moldova, Serbia and Bosnia. War with Russia and corruption are not the only obstacles; Ukraine would be the largest country in the EU by land mass, the fourth largest by population and would absorb huge amounts of EU funds.

Macron wants to create what he calls a European “political community” for aspiring members, including Ukraine. He insists it would not be a substitute for membership, but part of the accession process. It offers zero military protection.

Observers are sceptical. “Macron’s proposal means leaving Ukraine, Moldova and possibly Georgia to marinate in candidate status,” says Konstantin Eggert, Russian affairs analyst for the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

The war in Ukraine has increased the craving for Nato protection throughout the region, yet Macron clings to his vision of more autonomous European defence. Visiting French troops at a Nato base in Constanța, Romania, on June 14th, he said: “What we are in the process of building here is unprecedented. The Europe of defence is being built here.” The statement ignored the fact that the US is about to double its presence in Constanța to 4,000 soldiers.

“The idea of the EU being better-armed and better-prepared for military conflict is wonderful,” says Eggert. “But unless the public are ready to pay significantly for a thorough overhaul of their armed forces, it will mean nothing.” Moreover, Charles de Gaulle’s withdrawal from the Nato integrated command in 1966 created a legacy of distrust among France’s Nato partners. “Are Macron’s ideas about strengthening the European component of Nato, or do they mean ‘let’s kick the Americans out of Europe’?” Eggert asks.

The presence of Romania’s president in Kyiv on Thursday smacked of tokenism, Eggert said. “The trip by the leaders of France, Germany and Italy seemed to show that ‘old Europe’ — which underestimated the Russian threat despite having access to US intelligence — is still running the EU. The absence of the presidents of Poland and Lithuania, who have been very active in supporting Ukraine, showed there is no realisation that western Europeans do not necessarily speak for the EU. We are going to see a shift in power and influence inside the EU, because the Poles and Baltic states will not take orders from Berlin and Paris any more.”