While the fighting in eastern Ukraine continues unabated, EU leaders will decide whether the country will become a membership candidate at the summit of the European Council on June 23 to 24. This vote follows the recommendation of the European Commission on June 17 to grant both Ukraine and Moldova this status while postponing it for Georgia until it meets more conditions. After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis came out in favor of this step during their visit to Kyiv last week, the member states who had remained hesitant have also altered their position. Much of the debate in the Council will focus on what Ukraine’s candidate status will mean in practical terms and how it coheres with the path of others, in particular the countries of the Western Balkans that have been part of the EU accession process for a long time.
With our experts, we will discuss the outlook for the EU summit and its broader implications – for Ukraine, the stalled EU enlargement process, and Germany’s (mostly missing) leadership on this issue. During the Zeitenwende era, it is enough for Chancellor Scholz and the German government to be quiet consensus builders among member states or should they more actively shape the EU’s geostrategic approach to its eastern neighbors?
Speakers:
Katarína Mathernová Deputy Director-General, Directorate-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations; Acting Head of the Support Group of Ukraine, European Commission
Sylvie Kauffmann Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow, Robert Bosch Academy; Editorial Director, Le Monde
Dr. Stefan Meister Head of the Democracy and International Order Program, DGAP
Milan Nič Senior Fellow in the Alfred von Oppenheim Center for European Policy Studies, DGAP
Moderator: Dr. Henning Hoff, Executive Editor, Internationale Politik Quarterly
Please register here: events@dgap.org. You will find information related to data processing at https://dgap.org/en/zoom.
Please note that this event will be recorded.
For any questions, please contact Yulia Loeva (events@dgap.org).