Many commentators snickered at her post, and several bloggers said that it was a happy coincidence that such an idea wasn’t put forward by either Ukrainian president or prime minister.
Of course, even if Hopko’s proposal sounds quite unrealistic, I would argue that the Brexit has definitely changed the overall configuration of the EU – and it looks highly propable that Ukraine may eventually profit from this change (of course, only if its leadership will work hard on the issue). From my point of view, there are at least two factors that might increase Ukraine’s chances for a closer integration inside the European Union.
On the one hand, as the result of the Brexit the United Kingdom will adopt some new kind of relationships with the European Union. Many observers look now at Switzerland and Norway as on possible specimen for Britain’s new status. It means, therefore, that it will be already four countries in the near future (UK, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland) which de facto adopted the greater part of the European Union’s acquis communautaire; participate in many integration programmes; benefit from the free flow of capital and [presumably] labour; but, at the same time cannot pretend on getting EU funding for development needs (as much of the Central and Southern European nations do) and have no means at their disposal for taking part in pan-European decision-making. Moreover, these countries are oblidged to pay Brussels annual fees (as huge as Є780m in case of Switzerland) for having full access to the European market.
This, in fact, opens a unique opportunity not only for creating a two-speed Europe, but, if putting it bluntly, to offer this kind of integration into Europe as a free market commodity. What, actually, was the European Union fearing while it came to the debate on Ukraine’s membership? Of course, there were topics of subsidies on the table; of the country’s unreadiness for adopting the acquis; the issue of ‘exporting corruption’, and so on (I do not mention that Ukraine if being a part of the Union, would get the 5th-largest faction in the European Parliament).
But if the future EU consists of now 26 full members and several associate ones, which will adopt the acquis and therefore forced to comply with the European rules (and I should confess I do not believe that any of Eastern European countries can get rid of corruption while preparing to join the EU, while the victory upon this evil might be consolidated only if the highest judicial authority has already departed from Kiev to Luxembourg), Ukraine may well qualify not to fill the seat deserted by the UK, but to join Great Britain in its EU-partner status. I believe this will be quite enough for Ukraine for at least a decade or so and will help to transform the country in a really dramatic way.
On the other hand, the Brexit opened a series of discussions in different EU nations about the further fate of both the union and these countries inside it. I hope to be proven wrong, but some probability of organizing the referendums resembling the British one definitely exists in Slovakia, Hungary, Denmark, the Netherlands and (with much smaller chances) in Finland. The coming year or two will be critical to the EU since the Euroskeptics will struggle for power in Austria and France, in Spain and Poland, as well as in some other parts of the EU.
Under such circumstances the EU leaders would be forced to value and to support any kind of Euro-enthusiasts from whatever place they may arise, so the new political scene may turn quite beneficial for Ukraine. If not only UK, but some other countries would like to downgrade their status, taking some new members in and putting them at the same grade as those who opted out would be the best possible EU’s answer on the moves undertaken by disbelievers.
I would argue that what Ukraine needs now is not a full EU membership – which seems these days unobtainable – but another drastic move that will fix it inside the formal structure of the two-speed Europe.
The new configuration of Europe, if it comes into existence after the Brexit, may well allow this step to be made much sooner than many might expect.
Of course, it will not fit some dreams that may be present in Kyiv’s political elites; it will be seen by many as a humiliation of the struggling Ukrainian people; it will presuppose that the Ukrainian government should forget about getting money from Brussels but must start to collect it for paying for the privileges the coutry gets – but in the end it will become a start of a long and adventurous journey, that may finally detach Ukraine from Russia and integrate it into Europe. I would not say that during this journey Ukraine may be joined by Georgia and Moldova (and, maybe, Armenia) – therefore becoming a natural regional leader it deserves to be.
This task may be hard and complicated – but if such a unique opportinity is lost, a new one may not open soon. So, I would advise Hopko to abandon her Facebook account and to turn to her main job which consists in drafting Ukraine’s new ambitious foreign policy action plan.
