Enlargement: do people or geopolitical considerations come first?

 

 

Intervention by AKEL MEP Georgiou in the EP plenary debate on the EU’s Enlargement policy

 

22 November 2023

 

Last June, Ursula von der Leyen said that “Ukrainians are ready to sacrifice themselves for the European perspective”.

 

Before that, with the outbreak of war, in an arbitrary and emotional way, she attributed to them the status of an accession country.

 

I wonder if these are considered criteria for enlargement?

 

Madam Vice-President, you said that criteria must be met.

 

Recently, however, the European Court of Auditors stated that there are insufficient safeguards applied to combat corruption in Ukraine, while it also talked about a systemic danger from oligarchs and vested interests.

 

Where is the criteria on the rule of law then?

 

The issue I am raising does not concern Ukraine, Moldova or any other candidate country.

 

If they want it and are entitled to it, let them have it.

 

But are we not perhaps, through any enlargement, lowering the bar of criteria too low, serving other considerations and purposes?

 

What is ultimately of paramount importance – the people and their interests, democratisation and their prosperity, or the serving of specific geopolitical considerations on the part of the EU’s powerful states?