With Kyiv under attack, President Zelenskiy says now is ‘crucial moment’ for decision on entering the bloc.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the “crucial moment” to decide on the country’s membership in the EU, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday. 

Zelenskiy’s appeal came as the Ukrainian leader spoke with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, French President Emmanual Macron, President of the European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The round of calls followed a night of heavy fighting in Ukraine, which saw several cities come under attack. Zelenskiy said that soldiers had pushed back a Russian column that had advanced into the capital Kyiv. 

In several tweets, Ukraine’s president said that it was “a crucial moment to close the long-standing discussion once and for all and decide on Ukraine’s membership in the #EU,” stating that “Ukraine must become part of the #EU.” 

Ukraine’s EU membership ambition is well known, with the country’s foreign minister telling POLITICO last August that the EU should welcome Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia into its fold. Ukraine is already part of the Eastern Partnership as well as the European Neighbourhood Policy. The EU and Ukraine also have an Association Agreement that sets out the economic and political ties between the two. 

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In an interview with POLITICO in 2020, Zelenskiy said that Ukraine’s destiny is clearly in the West. “Ukrainians want to live in European Ukraine,” he said. “They understand that this is the way to be a member of the EU. I believe that we are mentally more European than, sorry, some EU countries.”

But now it’s not just Zelenskiy calling for the move. 

In an article published on February 23, former presidents of Poland and Estonia, as well as a former prime minister of Sweden, argued that the dramatic situation in Ukraine means the EU should now “offer Ukraine a membership perspective.” The authors of the article published by the Atlantic Council wrote that it would be “a bold, courageous, and meaningful political statement.” 

Former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, former Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, alongside several others such as the former Secretary-General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen, argued that the accession process wouldn’t be rapid but that by opening the membership perspective it would be a “sign to Ukraine as well as to the Kremlin.”

However, Ukraine is not currently officially negotiating its membership of the EU. The countries that are officially in these talks are Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.