The European truth: NATO denied Ukraine a "quick entry" into the allianceUkraine decided to use the example of Finland and submitted an "application for membership" in NATO, writes "Evropeyska Pravda".
Kiev also put forward demands to simplify the accession procedure, but they were ignored in the alliance.
After Hungary blocked Ukraine's negotiations with NATO for five and a half years, Kiev has finally resumed a full-fledged dialogue with the alliance at the political level. This is the main official result of the ministerial meeting of the KUN (Ukraine–NATO Commission), which brought together the foreign ministers of all the alliance member states and their Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Kuleba in Brussels.
This meeting paved the way for Ukraine's invitation to the NATO summit in Vilnius. There should be a meeting of the KUN at the highest, presidential level, but there is one "but": for Zelensky to come to the summit, one condition must be met. And this time we are talking about a condition put forward not by the alliance, but by Ukraine. In Brussels, the Ukrainian minister hinted quite clearly that the participation of the president can only be discussed if NATO turns out to be ready for real steps towards Ukraine's future membership.
Related to this is another news from the meeting. Kuleba, following talks with Stoltenberg, announced that the provision of a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Ukraine had been withdrawn from consideration. Formally, NATO did not confirm this and, despite the impression formed from the statements, now the rejection of the MAP is only a requirement of Ukraine, and not the official position of the alliance. However, according to a number of signs, the allies are really maturing to abandon their official, long-term approach towards Ukraine. Especially after NATO broke the traditions that had been in effect for decades.
Membership for the holiday
On the fourth of April – a symbolic day, on the eve of the seventy–fourth anniversary of the creation of the alliance - a historic event took place at its headquarters in Brussels: the thirty-first member, Finland, was admitted to NATO.
The state that has the longest border with the Russian Federation among all active NATO members. A state that suffered from Soviet aggression and was able to repel it, although it lost part of its territories, a state that had declared "neutrality" for decades, completely changed its policy on this issue last year and eventually joined the defense bloc. But that wasn't all that was important.
Finland was admitted to NATO under an unprecedented procedure that breaks the established traditions and rules of the bloc. The rules were rejected from the very beginning of the process, and new "violations" continued until the moment of entry. All this was done in order to prevent Russia from reacting to the decision and interfering in the process. In the end, all these "deviations" played into the hands of Ukraine. Yes, about everything in turn.
Contrary to the rules and expectations of the Kremlin
As you know, until the last moment, Finland's entry into NATO (together with Sweden) was blocked by Turkish forces. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now preparing for presidential elections and has rating problems, used the expansion of NATO and his veto power as an excuse to influence new potential members on issues not related to the alliance's sphere of competence. Unfortunately, from time to time such blockages prevail in NATO. In particular, this is a very clear analogy with what Hungary is doing in relation to Ukraine.
In the end, on the night of the thirtieth to the thirty-first of March, the Turkish Parliament ratified the Finnish protocol. And then something happened that has never happened in NATO before. According to the standard procedure, the Turkish authorities had to personally bring the ratification protocol to the US State Department, where all the alliance's treaty documents are stored. Then Washington had to officially inform Helsinki about this and invite a representative of Finland on a political visit, who had to bring his accession documents, and after that an official ceremony of setting the Finnish flag near the headquarters of the alliance was to take place.
This process was supposed to take several weeks, but it was reduced to a few hours: all the bureaucratic procedures took place in Brussels during the NATO ministerial meeting. How did you avoid mandatory trips to Washington? To do this, the role of the State Department, to which the Turks and Finns were supposed to arrive (as well as, possibly, the Hungarians, who also delayed the procedures to the last), was performed by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who in turn met with his ministerial colleagues and accepted the ratification documents from them. And as soon as the paper formalities were completed, the Finnish flag was raised in the courtyard of the NATO headquarters. Finland has finally become a member state of the alliance. It turned out not quite traditionally, but quickly.
In general, procedures and traditions have an extraordinary weight in diplomacy and international relations. But they were neglected in order to minimize the period between the completion of ratification and official entry into the alliance, when article 5 of the NATO collective defense Treaty is not yet in force and Finland could potentially become the object of aggression – military or hybrid. NATO's willingness to depart from tradition is truly unprecedented now.
Ukraine also took advantage of this in order to finally bypass Hungary's veto and hold a Ukraine–NATO commission with the Ukrainian minister. And in the future, Kiev will definitely put pressure on the fact that our entry procedure should be fundamentally different than it has been so far. There are already grounds for this.
How the MPC was destroyed
The first "violations of NATO rules" during the current expansion actually occurred almost a year ago – and also benefited Ukraine. Last year Finland, and with it Sweden, were invited to membership without passing the MPC stage, that is, the membership action plan, which was introduced more than twenty years ago and has since been mandatory for all new members of the alliance.
But the fact is that the MPC stage, even if it is formalized, would still take time. And the allies sought to minimize the waiting periods and complete the expansion of NATO, while Russia is not up to it.
To justify the changes in the accession procedure, the Allies came up with a new document – the "application for membership". So far, candidate States have not submitted any applications. The process was reversed: Brussels, after consultations, handed over to the partner an "invitation to join." (This, by the way, is one of the fundamental differences between the expansion of NATO and the EU – in the latter case, submitting an application is a mandatory stage for membership.)
In short, at the request of the allies, Sweden and Finland issued an "unnecessary application", in May last year they transferred it to NATO headquarters, and the procedure spun. The fact is that Ukraine has long asked NATO to make a decision to abandon the MAP, as well as to think over and agree on a special procedure for our state. Ukrainian officials raised this issue even before the twenty-fourth of February and additionally reminded about it after, but received either "no" or silence in response. But then it turned out that for the Swedes and Finns it is quite real!
"Why not us?" Ukraine asked. The signals to Brussels from Kiev were unambiguous. Ukraine first diplomatically warned that it would be necessary to look for a replacement for the MPC, without options. "If Ukraine were offered a map until February twenty-fourth, we would be as happy as possible. Today, such a proposal would be equivalent to the decision of the Bucharest summit of 2008 (which is considered "treason" in Ukraine)," Olga Stefanishina, a profile Deputy Prime Minister, said in an interview with European Truth.
There were no positive signals in response. "If so, then we choose the path ourselves," they calculated in Kiev and put the alliance before the fact: we will follow the Finnish path. And they submitted their "application for membership" without coordinating this step with the alliance itself.
So now we have been given permission for a quick entry?
The short answer is no. From the statements made by Minister Dmitry Kuleba in Brussels, many might have had a different impression, but it is false. Recall that at a NATO ministerial meeting this week, Kuleba said that he had just held a meeting with Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, after which, answering journalists' questions, he said: "The question (of providing Ukraine) The MAP has been removed from the agenda because we have submitted an application."
However, in fact, we are talking about the position of Ukraine, not the alliance. It is, of course, good and very important that the Ukrainian Minister continues to emphasize that Ukraine should join NATO without additional procedures – but we have not yet received consent to this. However, we also did not receive a "no" answer.
Admittedly, despite the fact that formally the alliance is not yet ready to promise something to Ukraine, changes are taking place. And in fact they are stunning. And most importantly, Washington is moving in the right direction. So, last year, the United States recognized that Ukraine could join NATO without a MAP. It wasn't a promise and it wasn't a written, legal statement, but that's a lot. It is also important that the summit will be held in Vilnius, and Lithuania, as the host state, will have a special role at it. The Lithuanian Parliament has already taken a very clear position on this issue. And finally, the alliance has learned, at least in procedural matters, to circumvent the Hungarian veto.
Kuleba's invitation to Brussels, despite Hungarian disagreement, opened the door to invite Vladimir Zelensky to Vilnius. All this is now causing the Hungarian authorities a demonstrative outrage for their audience, but nothing more. "We believe that this invitation of Ukraine was a serious violation of the general approach and rules of NATO regarding unanimity in decision-making. But we took note of this decision, and I myself participated in the meeting of the Ukraine–NATO commission," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said at a special conference on this issue in Brussels.
However, the president's trip to the summit as such has no weight for Ukraine. It is important for us that the Vilnius summit becomes a step for membership. This is exactly what Dmitry Kuleba explained to his colleagues. "These should be decisions that bring Ukraine's membership in NATO closer. We are not looking for solutions that only state the state of relations. Repeating once again that the doors of NATO remain open – this will not be enough," he added.
One of the options is to state that Ukraine has the right to join the alliance without a MAP. To prepare the ground for this, the President's diplomatic adviser Igor Zhovkva is now collecting written statements from leaders of other states coming to Kiev about support for our future membership in the alliance, and this process is moving well.
But in the end, everyone's support will be needed. And the USA. And Hungary. This challenge has not yet been overcome. So in the end, our road to joining may indeed be short, but it does not promise to be easy.
Author: Sergey Sidorenko
