Zelensky, in a passionate speech, urges the E.U. to admit Ukraine immediately.
Source: New York Times
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine urged the European Union on Monday to grant his country immediate accession to the bloc in response to Russia’s invasion.
In a passionate speech aimed at rallying Ukrainians to continue to defend their country and encouraging further international support, he thanked E.U. countries that have decided to supply arms to Ukraine over the past few days and said he had spoken to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, to urge her to take “even stronger steps.”
“We appeal to the European Union for Ukraine’s immediate accession under a new special procedure,” Zelensky said in a video broadcast from the capital, Kyiv. “Our goal is to stand alongside all Europeans and, most importantly, to stand on their level.”
The European Union wants Ukraine to join the bloc “over time,” Ms. von der Leyen said in an interview with Euronews on Saturday, although she gave no indication of timing. Ukraine took a first step to joining the European Union in early 2014, but progress toward accession has been slow. Kyiv’s turn toward the European Union and the West has angered President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and has helped fuel a conflict involving Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/world/europe/ukraine-european-union-zelensky.html
Here is a video clip of portions of his request -
= new reply since forum marked as read
(and it's possible they may change their mind about NATO)
And as I have posted elsehwhere, the world is not "sitting by". There are probably a dozen LBN threads about what the world "is doing".
By Reuters.
Published May 28, 2010. Updated May 12 at 8:21 pm
Ukraine on Thursday formally buried pursuit of NATO membership as an aim, its foreign minister declaring the issue had been taken off the policy agenda.
It was the most clear-cut statement by the new leadership of President Viktor Yanukovych that the issue was a dead letter in Ukraine for the conceivable future.
“Ukraine will continue developing its relations with the alliance, but the question of membership is now being removed from the agenda,” the foreign minister, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. “This corresponds to the way things are today,” he added in comments to a foreign policy coordination meeting.
Yanukovych himself was separately quoted as saying by Interfax in the Western city of Lviv: “Entry into NATO is not realistic for our country today.”
https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/ukraine-makes-it-official-nation-will-abandon-plan-67901.html
That was the point I was making. Zelensky only got elected in 2019 so for the almost 10 years BEFORE he got in, "no NATO" was the country's policy.
which had a major impact on what the successor government has had to deal with to meet the criteria?
They may be getting all the ducks in a row NOW but were also dealing with break-away regions (in addition to what happened in 2014 with Crimea). But there is a whole process that needs to happen, with verification, to make it so - https://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/how-new-member-states-join-the-eu-all-you-need-to-know/
(hell, Turkey has been trying to join the EU for years!)
The OP has nothing to do with "NATO". The OP header says this -
But the subthread continued OFFTOPIC about NATO, with some mention of "EU" and I posted what the facts were about the sentiment of a previous administration (that was in there for 10 years) - which might be contrary to the current, but that is no different from what the U.S.'s experience has been with previous administrations - the literal policy whiplash.
You can't just dismiss the body of policies from a country just because you want to. Apparently the EU members soured on those earlier policies and just because there is a new person in there, that doesn't automatically mean that the EU's other members are going to suddenly jump when he says jump. I am sure they don't want to see what happened with Britain (" Brexit" ) happen with another potential member if their government changes again, and I expect that given what is happening now, they are sympathetic, but we will have to see how they respond.
and
31. Again, avoid the Yanukovych years and the policy is much more standardized.
Now if you want to self-delete that and start over then be my guest.
What "we" think is irrelevant in any case. The members within the EU who decide on the rigorousness of the application, will be the arbiters of what happens, and they are most likely looking at the overall stability of the government there given what happened with Yanukovych and "fleeing".
Here are larger versions of the images in the tweet -
NATO is a treaty organization for military defense and mutual aid. If one NATO member is attacked, all members are pledged to defend and retaliate.
But the EU is more like the "United States of Europe" - you know, the thing that Britain just quit last year. The members of EU all agree to common money based on the Euro. They all agree to common trade laws and customs, their banks must all be coordinated, their tax structures and many of their laws are examined and coordinated. There's a lot more to it than mutual defense coordination.
I'm not an expert on this and there are several other DU members who are able to explain it more completely.
