Last week Irish voters rejected the EU’s ground-breaking Lisbon Treaty, striking a major blow against plans for the expansion of the EU’s role in day-to-day government while serving to undermine the international clout of Brussels policy-makers. Despite widespread unease throughout EU member states over the treaty’s implications, which would include handing over more power from national governments to Brussels, Ireland was the only country prepared to put this issue to a national vote prior to final ratification. It is not hard to imagine why other governments were reluctant to give their electorates a chance to vote over Lisbon. Similar referendums over previous EU constitutions have resulted in embarrassing setbacks for the EU in France, Holland and Denmark in recent years, and Irish voters have now added their voice to this trend with a resounding rejection of a treaty which would have otherwise formed the blueprint for the emerging EU Super State. The result will likely be more Brussels soul-searching and a lack of clear leadership on the Ukraine question, which may now return to the periphery of EU political debate.
Bad news for Ukraine
The implications of this Irish rejection could be particularly damaging for Ukraine, which is hoping to sign a far-reaching new partnership agreement with the EU in September and badly needs a united EU to offer clear terms and conditions for a strengthening of bilateral ties. However, with expansion fatigue already sapping any residual enthusiasm for a new round of EU enlargements, Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty may act to quash support for any commitment to eventual Ukrainian EU membership. With the EU facing such internal divides it is hard to believe that by September member states will be ready to look towards expansion and deeper commitment in its eastern borderlands. Instead the likely outcome will be anti-climatic, with vague expressions of mutual commitment now far more probable than any concrete steps towards Ukrainian EU membership.
If Ukraine is to make significant progress along the road to European integration and reform, it desperately needs the offer of incentives, financial and otherwise, which the former communist countries of eastern Europe received from Brussels throughout the 1990s. Such a firm commitment would require the kind of strong leadership that appears to be sadly lacking within the EU today, which as an institution is now in danger of losing its way entirely. Ukraine’s immediate hopes focus on a September summit times to coincide with the start of France’s six month stint in the rotating EU presidency. The very idea to rotate the nominal leadership of the mega-bloc has been criticised as a source of inefficiency, with each country given little leeway in which to shape policy but nevertheless keen to leave an impression. Indeed, one of the clauses of the controversial Lisbon Treaty foresaw the creation of an EU president who would offer the kind of leadership that many argue the EU needs if it is to survive. With the plans for an EU presidency now indefinitely postponed Ukraine will be left to pin its hopes on French President Nikolas Sarkozy, a man who has made no secret of his opposition to full EU membership for Turkey and is thought to regard Ukraine as a useful stumbling block to derail the Turkish membership drive. Mr. Sarkozy has promised to offer Ukraine an associate agreement which many in Kyiv are keen to interpret as a signal that a road map for eventual membership is just around the corner.
Euro optimism, Russian realities
With the EU reeling from this Irish debacle such optimism is unlikely to be justified by the content any forthcoming agreement between Kyiv and Brussels. While the EU has been forced to contend with Ukraine in recent years thanks to Kyiv’s unilateral declaration of the country’s European future following the 2004 Orange Revolution, Brussels officials have rarely bothered to disguise their lack of enthusiasm for Ukrainian membership, spending much of their time stressing just how far off any chance of eventual membership still lies. We may have come a long way from the days when European Commission President Romano Prodi could quip that Ukraine had as much chance of joining the EU as New Zealand, but there remains a huge gulf in the way the EU and Ukraine view their future together. Doubts over the future direction of the EU should prove more than enough to encourage a postponement of any major decisions over the Ukrainian question.
All this is a far cry from the certainty offered by Russia, which, for all its faults, is certainly not prone to dithering over policy and can be relied on to offer the kind of iron-fisted and decisive leadership which many former Soviet citizens value so highly. Thanks to Ukraine’s democratic breakthrough the EU currently has the chance to make historic inroads into previously uncharted totalitarian territory, but there is every reason to believe that this particular window of opportunity will not remain open for ever. After five decades of almost continuous expansion, negotiations with Ukraine could come to mark the moment when the EU finally stopped expanding.
