Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I am drilling down on two issues: the EU's push to get Russian concessions and Ukraine's EU 2027 EU membership bid.
Briefing #1: What The EU Says Russia Should Concede
What You Need To Know: The EU top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has distributed a paper among EU member states, seen by RFE/RL, that spells out concessions Russia should make in ongoing diplomatic talks with Ukraine, which the United States is mediating. The demands include a reduction of Russian troops levels and their withdrawal from neighboring countries, reparation payments, and the need to democratize its society.
Neither the EU nor individual European nations have a seat at the table in the various negotiations that have been ongoing for close to a year to stop the war in Ukraine. Seeing as the EU funds most aid to Ukraine and a potential 20-point peace plan spells out clear Brussels competences such as Ukrainian EU membership by 2027, European leaders have bemoaned their lack of political clout in the talks.
Deep Background: The discussion paper, titled European Core Interests in Ensuring a Comprehensive, Just and Lasting Peace and Continent's Security, insists that there can be no peace or security "without the EU at the negotiating table and without taking into account [the] EU's core interests."
The document presents a very "EU maximalist" view on what Russia should do, with one EU diplomat telling RFE/RL that "we pay back to Russian maximalists demands on Ukraine." The Kremlin has so far refused to give up its goal of controlling the entire Ukrainian region of Donbas and reportedly also balked at ideas such as stationing NATO troops in western Ukraine as a post-deal security deal or paying for damages caused by the war.
Another European official familiar with the paper says: "Getting to peace isn't all about Ukraine conceding. We also have to talk about what Russia must do, ahead of sending any envoy there."
There have been discussions among EU capitals about creating an EU envoy who deals specifically with Russia even though there is no agreement who this person would be or what their mandate would be.
The paper will be discussed by EU ambassadors on February 17, and it is expected that at least parts of might come up for debate when the bloc's foreign ministers meet in Brussels on February 23.
Drilling Down:
- In the first chapter, titled Russia to Respect Independence, Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity of States, the main idea is that if Ukraine should cap its troop levels or even withdraw them from some areas -- something discussed during the US-mediated talks -- then Russia should do the same. It also demands that no "de jure" recognition of the occupied Ukrainian territories occur and that those areas are de-militarized.
- The next chapter, A Secure and Stable Europe, includes a demand that "Russia stops disinformation campaigns, sabotage, cyber-attacks, airspace violations and interference in elections on European territory and in neighbouring countries."
- Another ultimatum stipulates no nuclear weapons in Belarus and a "ban of Russian military presence and deployments in Belarus, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Armenia." Russian troops have for decades been stationed in Russian-controlled breakaway regions such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniester, as well as bases in Armenia and Belarus.
- On the need for Moscow to adhere to international law, the call by the EU includes no blanket amnesty for war crimes, access for international investigators to sites of suspected war crimes, and that no domestic Russian law is elevated above international treaties spelling out various Russian obligations globally.
- When it comes to reparations, the text notes that "Russia must compensate and contribute to Ukraine's reconstruction, for damages to European states and European companies, and for ecological damages it has caused."
- The EU has frozen some 210 billion euros worth of Russian sovereign wealth assets but has so far failed to agree on a method to either legally confiscate them or leverage them to channel funds to Ukraine. Brussels has, however, sent the quarterly windfall profits of this money to Kyiv.
- The final demands concern the domestic situation in Russia with the paper calling for free and fair elections with international monitoring, a release of all political prisoners, a return of deported civilians and children, media freedom, a repeal of the foreign agent law, ceasing "historical falsification and other laws that criminalize dissent and delegitimize independent media and civil society" and full cooperation in investigations of the killings of the Russian opposition leaders Aleksei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov.
Briefing #2: Ukraine's EU Membership Pipe Dream
What You Need To Know: The question of a speedy Ukrainian EU membership, possibly even as early as next year, has resurfaced again. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy notably tweeted, "It is important that Ukraine will do everything to be technically ready for EU accession by 2027. At least the main steps we will accomplish. I want a specific date." He elaborated at the Munich Security Conference on February 14 that "we need a date because otherwise Russia will try to block us -- directly or through maybe other countries."
In parallel, Brussels is starting to look at potential creative solutions to help Kyiv in this regard. In a meeting with ambassadors of the 27 members states earlier in February, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen floated the idea of "a reversed enlargement," meaning a country could join but without many or most of the privileges of membership such as voting rights, its own European commissioner, or even full access to funding. Such rights and obligations would be gradually phased in later as the country continues necessary reforms to become a fully-fledged member.
Deep Background: There are two reasons this potential partial membership is being examined. There's no way Ukraine can become a fully-fledged member already by next year. While the country became an official EU candidate country in 2022, it still hasn't opened EU accession talks yet. This is largely due to a Hungarian veto over what Budapest alleges is Ukrainian discrimination of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
Accession talks as well as the opening, closing, and sometimes even interim benchmarks of the 33 accession chapters need unanimous support of the EU member states -- there are close to 100 veto opportunities for each and every capital in this process. Even if Viktor Orban's Fidesz loses the Hungarian parliamentary election in April and a slightly more pro-Ukrainian Tisza party comes to power, Ukraine may only be able to open talks on all chapters and potentially close some by 2027.
A quick look at the European Commission's own assessment from late 2025 of Kyiv's readiness for membership shows the country only has "a good level of preparation" in a handful of the 33 chapters. To illustrate, it has taken Montenegro -- a smaller, richer, and less geopolitically complicated country than Ukraine -- 13 years of EU accession negotiations to close 13 of the 33 chapters. Ukraine joining the EU sometime in the 2030s would still be regarded as "speedy" according to most EU enlargement experts.
But the main reason for the EU's quest for creativity is the 20-point peace plan that Russia, Ukraine, and the United States are currently negotiating. One of those 20 points spells out Ukrainian EU membership by 2027. It is fair to say the Europeans aren't happy that they aren't around the table and even more so when it comes to issues they should have a say on.
Speaking to RFE/RL at the Munich conference, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof remarked, "No doubt, Ukraine belongs to the European family, but the Americans and the Russian will not decide when Ukraine is going to enter the European Union. That is up to the European Union and to the European Union only together with Ukraine."
Drilling Down:
- Several EU officials RFE/RL spoke to off-the-record acknowledge that even though a peace deal currently looks distant, they cannot be the ones torpedoing it over a single point.
- They also agree they need to help Zelenskyy in some way. And EU membership, even partial, is one of the few sweeteners in an otherwise seemingly harsh settlement he can "sell" to the Ukrainian people.
- Can it be done by 2027? Speaking to RFE/RL in Munich, former European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso noted that "the creativity of European lawyers is boundless when there is a real need."
- He added: "The most likely scenario is to have some kind of expedited membership, not putting down the standards but in fact showing Ukraine that we are serious about EU membership."
- Even something fast-tracked, partial, front-loaded, or reversed may be a step too far for the EU. Current EU Enlargement Commissioner Mata Kos pinpointed the key obstacle in a recent interview with RFE/RL. "In the accession process there are two important pillars: One is the technical process that I am leading, and the other is the dynamics in the member states so whatever we do we have to get the approval of the member states," she said.
- A sudden change of methodology requires unanimity, and it's not only Hungary that has major reservations. Several other EU member states, according to RFE/RL Brussels sources familiar with the topic, are also wary.
- Schoof noted that "we can find ways, but I think it is going to be a difficult discussion." Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, asked about it in a panel discussion in Munich on February 15, was even blunter, saying, "Speaking to many EU heads of state and government, I felt that at the moment there is no readiness to agree on a date."
- Arguments range from the "Pandora's box" one could open up by potentially changing EU treaties and the bloc being bogged down in such discussions for years to how much access Ukraine should get to EU cash cows such as regional and agricultural funding, potentially upending what already is expected to be very complex and fraught discussions of the next EU budget (2028-2034) that will consume Brussels in the next two years.
- Others are also reluctant to commit to what is known as a "two-speed EU." "You are either in or out, that has always been the principle and the core strength of the Union", as one diplomat put it to RFE/RL.
- There is also the question of fairness, perhaps best put by Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic when speaking to RFE/RL on the issue. "If we will change the methodology to the geopolitical approach, then it will change not only vis-a-vis Ukraine," he said. "I support Ukraine, but it will have to change with everyone. And that will mean a big bang (enlargement), and we haven't had a big bang for many years."
- The last "big bang" enlargements were in 2004 and 2007, when 10 Central and Eastern European countries joined the club. And that took a fundamental economic and political reorganization of the EU.
- "Everyone," in Plenkovic's view, entails all the other EU hopefuls: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey. Of those nine, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey are technically more advanced than Ukraine as they all have started EU accession talks. They have been trying to gain membership for years, if not decades, under the current merit-based methodology.
- But would all current EU member states agree to some sort of EU membership all for those countries as well, and if not, which ones? A sudden Ukrainian EU membership, partial or otherwise, would in other words probably create more problems than it solves.
Looking Ahead
This week is a slower one in Brussels as the legislative agenda to a large extent is synched with the February school holidays in Belgium. There is, however, a chance the bloc's ambassadors might agree on the 20th package of sanctions against Russia ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Kyiv on February 24.
That's all for this week!
Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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