Ukrainian membership in EU prospects and the European support – the exclusive interview with Josep Borrell
Ukraine is speeding up for joining the European Union as a member country. The questionnaire handed over to President Volodymyr Zelenskyi at the beginning of April by Ursula von der Leyen the European Commission’s President has been filled up. And since now, becoming an EU member doesn’t look like theoretical talks, it feels more real.
About the next steps in the process and the way it will affect Ukrainians we posed questions to the High Representative of the EC Josep Borrell. How does the EU support Ukraine in the current battle with our mutual enemy? What does Mr. Borrell keep silent about? And why Ukraine’s fate is in the European Commission’s hands? The answers you’ll find in the exclusive interview with Josep Borrell for the Facts of the week, ICTV.
– Mr. Borrell. Thank you for having us, even over Skype. The last time when we met in person in Kyiv, you were really busy helping my country therefore we didn’t have enough time to properly speak. Once again, we’re really grateful for your time and effort. Tell me please, how real do you consider Ukraine’s chances of joining the EU as a country member?
– Everything goes much quicker than in a normal process. Usually, it takes much longer, but the first steps have already been done. I know that Ukraine has already answered the questionnaire that the president of the European Commission handed over to President Zelenskyi. It’s a good sign. Because usually to prepare the questionnaire and getting the answers takes months.
But now everything has been done in a couple of weeks. Now we expect to receive the replies to the second part of the questionnaires within weeks, we expect to receive them back by the end of May. And then the commission has to prepare an assessment of Ukraine’s obligations in light of the membership criteria.
This opinion will be made public. And after the decisions belongs to the Council. So from the middle of May, the ball will be on the European commission’s side and the commission needs to prepare an opinion assessing the capacity of Ukraine to become a member and the format. But until now we can tell you that every step has been done at the speed of light compared with the EU’s procedures.
– This is absolutely lovely to hear. President Zelenskyi asked to take Ukraine to the EU in a short period of time. Some other European leaders joined him. Does this kind of shortened procedure exist in the European Commission? Or does the EU willing to at least consider creating such a procedure specifically for Ukraine?
– Well, the procedure has to be followed. We cannot act apart from the rules. We are an institution and organization with a lot of rules that cannot be put aside. Some can be done quicker but every step has to be followed. And the important thing now is the opinion that Commission has to present to the Council. This is something unavoidable but this can be done more or less quicker and I’m sure the commission will do it very quickly.
– If I understood correctly, Ukraine won’t wait for as long as for example Turkey or other countries that applied were waiting, am I right?
– Well, you cannot compare these situations. Turkey’s question has been there for years and the evolution inside Turkey has made it more difficult to continue the enlargement process. But the opinion of the Commission was a positive one and the Council decided to start negotiations. And in the case of Ukraine, the internal situation is completely different. You cannot compare both cases.
– There is a program in the EU specifically designed to assist the candidate countries financially to fulfill the membership requirements. Provide us with some more details, please.
– Yes, certainly! When someone becomes a candidate there is a program called pre-accession funds which is a way of supporting the countries to fulfill the requirements to become a member. We know that becoming a member requires transformations in economic and social structure. These require effort. The effort needs to be financed and this is why we have these pre-accession funds. Members, who are already qualified as a candidate can use these pre-accession funds. This is quite important and has a strong influence.
– It’s not a secret, that Ukrainians wanted to join the EU for some time now. How will this affect the country economically and politically? What will change for regular Ukrainians? What does it mean to be a European?
– Look at Poland, your neighbor. How important has been the transformation of economic structure in Poland? I remember when Poland became a member and Polish had to go to a referendum to adopt it. At that time were fears of what might be the consequences. And now look, the consequences have been way very positive in agriculture.
Polish agriculture today is a powerful economic sector. The number of kilometers of highways, and roads, and infrastructure that have been funded by the European Union. I am coming from Spain and I can tell you that the flow of money that goes to improve the basic infrastructure, materials, and humans changes a country.
– The European Union has been always supportive of Ukraine. The time has come for the new package of sanctions introduced by the USA. Will the EU or EC extend the sanctions against Russia?
– Look, everybody is asking for more sanctions. Maybe we should be able to evaluate the consequences of the sanctions that have already been taken? Because it looks like once you announced the sanctions nobody cares about it anymore. And people say, – ‘give us the next round of sanctions’. What about the effects of the sanctions that have already been taken? Well, we cannot invent the sanctions every week.
Let’s have a look at what has happened to the Russian economy, and it’s clear that the Russian economy is paying a high price because of sanctions that have already been taken. Let me just put an example: more than 700 Russian aircraft, civilian aircraft cannot fly because they have lost their licenses due to the lack of the spare parts and software. More than 700 civilian aircraft are stopped. And the export from Russia, apart from the energy sectors, has dropped by 70%. Means 70% fewer exports. Inflation is growing.
The foreign investment is stopped. More than 200 000 people have lost their jobs due to the fact that foreign companies are withdrawing from Russia. We have frozen assets, the Russian assets by almost 30 billion euros. And if we think about the level of transactions that have been blocked, we’re talking about almost 200 billion (euros). So certainly the sanctions are changing the Russian economy.
But problem is that there is a collateral effect of sanctions. And there is a big debate in the world. We are facing a food crisis. We are facing an energy prices crisis. And the Russians are trying to sell to the rest of the world that these are consequences of the World’s sanctions, but no these are consequences of the war.
If Russians prevent Ukrainian wheat from being exported or they bomb the storages, then some people will not have enough wheat. But these are not the consequences of the sanctions. These are consequences of the war itself.
And this is a big theoretical battle, the narrative battle to be won. We cannot afford the rest of the world to believe that the sanctions against Russia are creating problems for them. We have to explain to them that the Russian war against Ukraine is the one that is creating problems and troubles all around the world. We cannot afford to lose this battle. The battle of words, the battle of ideas, but nevertheless the important one.
– You mentioned about Russian export being decreased. At the same time, it doesn’t affect the energy supplies from Russia. European seaports are forbidding the Russian ships to enter, however, there are exemptions related to transporting the oil, gas, and some metals. Why do these exemptions exist and considering this, do sanctions really affect the Russian economy?
– Yes, they are, yes they are! Everybody knows that we continue to have a strong dependency on energy exports from Russia. We are reducing it but we cannot reduce it overnight. It will be damaging us much more than damaging Russia. So we cannot inflate ourselves with the pain that is greater than the pain of our adversary. We are decreasing this dependency. Especially on oil. I’m pushing a lot in order to make oil from Russia banned.
But for the time being the member states are still on a strong dependency and we cannot cancel all the imports and they cannot cancel the payments. But you will see how quickly we are going to decrease this dependency. And we are going to find an alternative, then we will not be buying Russian oil and gas.
– But is there a way to deal with the loopholes that help Russia to avoid such sanctions, either using a third country or an intermediary company?
– You know the sanctions have to be carefully implemented and there is always a way of trying to escape using a third country or changing a name of a company. That’s why all the time we are up to measures to close the loophole to close a possibility of escaping the sanctions with the support of third states. And we are asking everybody not to contribute to making the sanctions useless.
This was one of the most important topics that we discussed with China the other day. Not to support Russia trying to make these sanctions inefficient, looking for escape ways. Sometimes it’s difficult and sometimes you found countries that are not willing to co-operate or they’re not adopting the same level of sanctions that we are adopting.
And the sanctions in order to be effective have to be a part of the network. Certainly, the Russians try to escape the sanctions by looking for support from other countries or firms. We have to fight against it, but sometimes it’s difficult because some members, some states don’t want to co-operate with us.
– You visited Donbass area at the beginning of the year. You’ve seen the situation there. Now Russia started a new offensive in the East of Ukraine. What are the possible scenarios? Will they manage to besiege any big city by the time of the Orthodox Easter or by the WWII victory anniversary, which is on May 9th?
– You know better than I because you are in Ukraine, that Russia has been a failure. The Russian attack against Ukraine, despite all the casualties that you have suffered, despite all the destructions of buildings and infrastructure, and the killing of the civilians you Ukrainians have been able to stop the Russians and to push them out of the Kyiv region. So they had to withdraw.
Now they’re trying to concentrate on just one part of the country in Donbas. And Ukrainian President Zelenskyi announced that a new battle has started. And we are trying to do our best to support Ukraine with military needs.
We are increasing the weapons that we provide, and the different types of arms in order for the Ukrainian army and Ukrainian people to resist this new fight which will be much more concentrated. But until now the Russian aggression again Ukraine was a big failure for the Russian army.
– Mr. Borrell, last week you hold a meeting with EU state members’ FMs. One of the key topics was related to supplying arms to Ukraine. What was the conclusion of the meeting? What type of weapons could we be expecting to receive from the EU?
– Well, I think that talking about weapons and talking about providing weapons, we have to be a little bit discreet. It’s better to do it and then to be much more vocal. Remember, we are in the war, you are in the war, and the less information we provide the better. That is something that is better to keep discreet and not to go to make very much vocal. Because the enemy is listening to you and to me at the moment. But I can tell you that there is a big effort from all the member states of the European Union and also the US and the UK, – everybody is trying to support Ukraine.
In the beginning, there were just helmets, remember? And now we’re talking about arms which have been proved to be very effective. And we will increase the caliber and the military capacity. But allow me to be discreet about that.
– While asking for the arms supplies, President Zelenskyi is making a list of weapons that the Ukrainian army is in real need of. Does the EU take this list into consideration?
– The answer is yes, certainly.
