Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg believes that the EU should change its approach when accepting future members, such as Ukraine, Moldova or the countries of the Western Balkans.
’Enlargement is not a bureaucratic endeavour. (…) It is not about applying each comma and paragraph of the acquis communitaire. It is about exporting and safeguarding a certain model of life. Of free, open, and Western democracies,’ Schallenberg said in Politico’s podcast. He emphasised that the EU should leave behind that binary thinking it had in the past. ’It’s either all or one, either you are not a member or you are fully a member.’ He believes that the new member states could be observers in the EU Council, participate in discussions, but only 27 member states will make decisions. Schallenberg said this is not even a question of changing the rules, but of political will.
First of all, let’s separately examine the abovementioned countries aspiring to join the EU. In my personal opinion, the place of the Western Balkans in Europe is absolutely indisputable, but I certainly do not consider Moldova ready for EU membership. As far as Ukraine is concerned, I think that non-compliance with most of the accession criteria answers the question: Kyiv is not yet ready to become a member of the European Union.
The rules of the European Union are clear, as well as the values it stands for, such as democracy, transparency, respect for human rights, respect and protection of national minorities, etc. Who would dare to claim that all this is being implemented in Ukraine?
And then Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg came, who would like to leave the good old rules behind and invite Ukraine to the EU tomorrow.
Perhaps it would be wiser for him to remain silent, or take a more moderate position, since the Austrian MFA not long ago was headed by a far-right politician Karin Kneissl, who danced with Vladimir Putin at her own wedding in 2017…!
The special relationship between Austria and Putin’s Russia could be the subject not of a blog post but of a whole book, with chapters on topics such as the Baumgarten gas hub, the Chechen diaspora in Austria, the Russian spy centre in Vienna disguised as a diplomatic mission and the rise of the Austrian far-right. All this is an ’achievement’ not of years but of decades. Former Austrian Foreign Minister Kneissl who said that she preferred Russia to the Maldives, should be included in the framework of the same special partnership, otherwise it is quite incomprehensible why she has moved to Russia and settled there…
Taking this all into account, it has to be said that Mr Schallenberg should have remained silent.
Sources:
• https://www.politico.eu/podcast/austrian-foreign-minister-schallenberg-eu-needs-to-rethink-its-enlargement-approach/
• https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-vladimir-putin-karin-kneissl-russia-petrushovo-maldives-seychelles/
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