reportaje_perspectivas_de_la_integracion_euroatlantica_de_ucrania

Prospects for Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration

essay informative

14 | 03 | 2022

Institute for Culture and Society

Texto

Since its independence in 1991, for the past three decades Ukraine has been swinging back and forth between an ever-widening West and an East circumscribed by a Russia reborn from the rubble of the USSR.

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"AFTER YEARS OF UNCLEAR POSTURING, THE TIME HAS COME FOR UKRAINE TO DECIDE WHETHER IT WANTS TO FOLLOW THE EURO-ATLANTIC PATH, LED BY THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE AND THE EUROPEAN UNION, OR THE EURASIAN PATH UNDER RUSSIAN COMMAND".

Recent circumstances, both in terms of internal status(mass emigration of Ukrainians to the West, the political changes in 2019, the long-lasting conflict in the east of the country and Russia's increasing destabilising activity, culminating in its invasion of Ukrainian territory in February 2022) and certain international developments (notably North Macedonia's accession to NATO in March 2020 and the prospects for this), The Ukrainian government's decision to join NATO in March 2020 and Georgia's prospects for it), after years of unclear posturing, is now time for Ukraine to decide which path it wants and is determined to follow: Euro-Atlantic, led by the Atlantic Alliance and the EU, or Eurasian under Russian command.

In the international context, Ukraine's future is of strategic importance. Given its location and size, it has become a pivot state between the West and the East, whose interests remain opposed. From the Western perspective (although often influenced by the Russian perspective, represented by NATO and taken up especially by Poland even before it became a member of the Alliance), an independent Ukraine is core topicfor security not only in East Central Europe, but in the Euro-Atlantic region as a whole. For Russia, the status of Ukraine is vital to its imperial ambitions: without Ukraine, Russia can only make claims in Asia, while controlling it guarantees a dominant position in Europe as well. 

The creation of the Vice-Presidency of the Government for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine in 2016 heralded the taking of a pro-Western umbo. In February 2019 this course was reiterated by amendments to the Constitution: the introduction of references to 'the European identity of the Ukrainian nation and the irreversibility of Ukraine's European and Euro-Atlantic course', as well as the extension of the constitutional competences of the Higher committeeconcerning the process of Ukraine's integration into NATO and the EU as a member in its own right plenary session of the Executive Council. President Petro Poroshenko proposed an action plan to make Ukraine's membership in both organisations "close and realistic". However, the demands presented to the Euro-Atlantic bloc by Ukrainian diplomacy on the one hand, and the constant non-fulfilment of the promises it received on the other, caused displeasure among NATO and EU leaders. By the time the 2019 elections came around, it was unclear whether the intensification of integration efforts was a sign of a fundamental transformation, inspired in part by progress in Macedonia and Georgia, or whether it was merely an element of the - lost - election campaign. At the beginning of his presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky was also somewhat ambiguous: while on his first foreign trip to Brussels on visithe met with EU and NATO leaders, at the same time he said that "nobody is waiting for Ukraine in the EU" and that he "does not understand what NATO is".