Ukraine in its current state is corrupt to the core and absolutely ineligible to join the European Union, former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has said.
"One mustn’t make false promises to the people of Ukraine who are up to their necks in suffering. I am very angry about the presence of some voices in Europe who are telling the Ukrainians that they can become members immediately," Juncker said in an extensive interview with German media on Thursday.
“That would not be of any good for the EU nor for Ukraine. Anyone who has anything to do with Ukraine knows that this is a country that is corrupt at all levels of society. Despite its efforts to date, it is not eligible to join, and needs massive internal reforms. We have had bad experiences with some so-called new members, for example when it comes to the rule of law. This cannot be repeated again,” the politician, who served as EC chief between 2014 and 2019, and dealt with Ukraine-related matters repeatedly over that time, added.
"The European prospects for Moldova and Ukraine, which is defending itself so virtuously and defending European values, must be maintained, but must not be linked to a hope that this can be achieved overnight at the push of a button," Juncker said. Instead, he proposed, countries like Ukraine should be able to "take part" in projects aimed at partial integration.
"We should work toward making something like partial accession possible, or an intelligent form of near-enlargement," Juncker proposed, without elaborating.
The former European Commission boss, who warned during his time in office that Ukraine would “certainly not become” an EU member over the next “20 to 25 years,” and that the country was “not European in the sense of the European Union,” repeatedly dashed the hopes of the Euromaidan coup plotters, who overthrew Ukraine’s government in 2014 and launched a civil war in the Donbass to try to set the country on a path to Europe. The crisis escalated into a full-on NATO-sponsored proxy war on Ukrainian territory in 2022 as Moscow attempted to preempt plans by Kiev to reabsorb the Donbass by force.
Juncker is the latest high-level European politician to put a damper on Ukraine’s EU prospects amid reports that bloc leaders are planning to initiate formal accession talks before the end of the year, despite the ongoing largescale conflict in the country.
Late last month, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola warned that the "economic model" that the bloc has today would not survive enlargement, and proposed a number of stopgap integrative processes short of membership, such as telephone and internet roaming, the lifting of trade barriers, access to some EU funds, Ukrainian access to European universities, etc.
European Council President Charles Michel also hinted this week that Ukraine could become a member of the EU no sooner than 2030, and even then only if "both sides do their homework."
"Ukraine and other candidate countries for accession to the EU must actively and steadily carry out reforms, fight corruption and comply with legal conditions," Michel stressed.
Commenting on the bloc’s plans to go ahead with accession talks, University of Fribourg macroeconomics and monetary policy professor Sergio Rossi told Sputnik that in addition to economic problems, an effort to absorb a country as large as Ukraine would undermine the "cohesion between current EU member countries" and potentially exacerbate local nationalisms.
Ukrainian officials announced this week that Kiev has begun work on a unified "Plan of Reforms" up to the year 2027, based on "recommendations and proposals" by Brussels and the International Monetary Fund.
Accession to the Ukraine would entitle Kiev to as much as €186 billion euros – a much sought-after boon to the country’s economy, which is desperately searching for new ways to raise money as debt levels approach 100 percent of GDP, foreign donations account for up to 70 percent of the state’s budget, and private creditors knock on Ukraine's door for returns on their 'investment'.