Will Ukraine join the EU?

European leaders have gathered for informal talks in the Spanish city of Granada with the topic of Ukraine's accession to the EU firmly in the front of their minds. 

France's President Emmanuel Macron is expected to "make a joint push" alongside Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz in trying to "kick start" difficult European enlargement talks at the third gathering of the European Political Community, said Politico.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has "provided ample fuel to propel enlargement to the top of the agenda", added the news site. But Macron and Scholz face a monumental challenge as they undertake the difficult task of convincing EU countries to implement the "painful internal reforms" required to admit Ukraine and other new member states. 

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What did the papers say?

Expanding the EU from its current 27 member states to potentially more than 30 will require the bloc to undertake massive changes to its "budget, institutions and decision-making processes", said Euronews.

Continuing Russian aggression means that Ukraine and its neighbour Moldova are now "frontrunners" in their bid to become EU member states. But senior EU diplomats have cautioned that little will happen to expedite the process "until there is maximum political pressure", reported The Guardian. "Why would member states agree to enlargement against the status quo?" one European Commission source told the paper.

Indeed, the "profound political and financial implications" of expanding the EU was underlined by a leaked draft European Council document seen by the Financial Times this week. 

According to internal estimates from the European Council, the integration of Ukraine into the bloc would entitle the country to €186 billion in EU funds over seven years, while the total financial tally of adding all nine potential members to the common budget would be €256.8 billion, according to its current estimates. 

While enlargement of the bloc is likely to take more than a decade and require reforms to existing budget arrangements, "the estimated scale of change required would decisively tip the financial balance within the bloc", said the FT. 

The potential changes would mean that member states "will have to pay more to and receive less from the EU budget", according to the leaked draft paper. Many of the countries that now receive more money from the EU than they put in would instead become "net contributors".

"These numbers aren’t going to work for anyone," Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, told the FT. "They make clear that root and branch reform of the EU budget and its major policies will be needed if Ukraine is to ever join, or that the entire Ukraine question will have to be dealt with innovatively and outside of existing EU budget structures."

What next?

Despite significant hurdles remaining on Ukraine's path to EU membership, further talks on its accession could come as soon as December, according to a report by Politico. 

"According to three diplomats with knowledge of the plans, leaders are preparing to give Kyiv the green light to begin formal talks on joining the 27-country bloc before the end of the year," reported the site. 

It said that a European Commission "progress report", designed to assess how well Ukraine and other aspiring members are meeting the bloc's conditions to join, is due in November. Once the progress report has been "adopted" negotiation talks are expected to be opened in December.

However, Ukraine is legally required to meet seven conditions set by the European Commission, including over judicial reforms and tackling corruption, before negotiations can start. So far it has only met two. 

Ahead of the Granada summit, the European Council president, Charles Michel, "repeated his pitch" that the EU should be ready for enlargement by 2030, said Euronews. He told the news site: "The purpose of setting a date is to open everyone's eyes and to say we can't procrastinate any longer."  

But there remains a significant lack of consensus around that date, including from the European Commission. It said that a fixed deadline "risks undermining the confidence of many stakeholders in a fair, transparent and merit-based accession process".

France will reportedly push for EU leaders to agree on a statement in Granada about the EU's reform needs as it considers enlargement, according to a French government adviser speaking to Politico. 

"A lot of things need to be addressed [by 2030]," he told the site, adding that the enlargement process needs to be made "more credible, with reforms in candidate countries and in the EU". 

But he signalled there should be limited expectations over a firm timeline for expansion. "I'm not sure setting a date is the most legitimate question," he added.