Volodymyr Zelensky rejects the German proposal for his country to be an associated state of the EU without voting rights. “It would be unfair for Ukraine to be present in the European Union without a voice,” the Ukrainian president wrote in a letter addressed on Friday to the leaders of the community club. “It is time to move towards full and meaningful [EU] membership. Ukraine has never understood candidacy as joining a ‘Half Union,’” says the text advanced by the Reuters agency and accessed by EL PAÍS.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposed this week in a letter to the EU leadership to create a new form of association for Ukraine and Moldova. This figure would allow them to participate in the plenary sessions of the European Council, in the councils of ministers, and in the meetings of commissioners of the European Commission, but without voting rights.
Merz has been the strongest voice in the EU to cool Ukrainian expectations of an express accession. Zelensky’s goal is for his country to be a member in 2027, something the German chancellor has already said twice this year is impossible. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, indicated last year that the country invaded by Russia could join the community club before 2030.
The idea of integrating into the EU in 2027 was first raised by Zelensky in the list of conditions to end the war that he negotiated with the White House and the Kremlin at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, pushed in favor of it. The proposal caused discomfort in Brussels because Europe did not participate in these negotiations.
Advantage for Moscow
The recipients of the letters from Merz and Zelensky are Von der Leyen; the President of the European Council, António Costa, and the rotating President of the EU, the Cypriot Christos Christodoulides. Zelensky’s message is harsh and warns that the association proposed by the German government would be a victory for the Kremlin: “It is important to avoid signs of weakness that Russia could interpret as an advantage.” “If we opt for half measures and uncertainty, Russia will see it as an opportunity,” says Zelensky. “Russia will understand it as the EU moving away from these candidate countries.”
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Zelensky’s letter emphasizes Ukraine’s role as a guarantor of European defense: “It is short-sighted to expect Ukraine to be fully part of the European security space, and the guarantee of European security, while being treated as a half member.”
“No other European nation has had to do so much at the same time, to transform internally for EU integration and to defend itself externally to safeguard its national existence,” Zelensky recalls.
Ukraine is implementing reforms in wartime, something the European Commission praises. Kiev asks to accelerate the negotiation of the multiple dossiers that must be agreed upon for accession, but Brussels and the member states are moving at a different pace. The changes to combat systemic corruption in Ukraine are one of the most complex chapters. So is the integration of the Ukrainian agricultural sector into the EU, one of the most powerful in the world. The Ukrainian government has already offered that its agricultural companies remain outside the Common Agricultural Policy aids for 15 years once they become part of the EU.
