OPEN ACCESS

Margalla Papers
Volume: 27, Number: 1 (2023)
Journal Homepage: https://margallapapers.ndu.edu.pk/site
e-ISSN: 2789-7028 ISSN-L: 1999-2297

RESEARCH PAPER

EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its

Real Problems?

AUTHOR(S): Houma Siddiqi

Dr Houma Siddiqi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, Faculty of
Contemporary Studies, National Defence University, Islamabad. The author(s) can be reached at
houmasiddiqi@ndu.edu.pk.

KEYWORDS: EU, Ukraine, State-ness Problem, State Legitimacy, Irredenta.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54690/margallapapers.27.1.148
BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY
Siddiqi, Houma. 2023. "EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its Real
Problems?" Margalla Papers 27 (1): 13-27.

ARTICLE HISTORY
 Received: March 22, 2023
 Peer Reviewed: April 29, 2023
 Revised: June 01, 2023
 Accepted: June 15, 2023
COPYRIGHT: © 2023 Houma Siddiqi. For detailed information, please visit our webpage
https://margallapapers.ndu.edu.pk/site/copyright.
LICENSING: This is an open-access research paper published under the terms of a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and
citation provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

COMPETING INTERESTS: The author(s) have declared that no competing interest exists.
DATA AVAILABILITY: All relevant data are within the paper and its supporting information files.
13

EU FAST TRACK MEMBERSHIP: CAN IT HELP

UKRAINE RESOLVE ITS REAL PROBLEMS?
Houma Siddiqi*

Abstract
In 1991, during its inception process, Ukraine faced Russia's territorial claims and a cold
reception from the Western world towards its leadership. After evaluating its internal and
external interests, Ukraine chose to sign a friendship and cooperation agreement with
Russia, compromising its rights as a sovereign state. This decision kept the complex
issues of cross-border irredentism and multiple identities in check. However, during the
democratic transition, external actors got involved in Ukraine's domestic politics,
resulting in the removal of President Yanukovych's government. This critical juncture set
the trajectory for unleashing Ukraine's state-ness issues. External involvement and
political mismanagement aggravated Ukraine's problems and transformed its political
issues into state-legitimacy issues, making its claim of a single entity void. Without state
legitimacy, Ukraine cannot join the EU or consolidate as a democracy. Even if it enters
the EU, it cannot safeguard its state sovereignty or achieve a profitable deal. This post-
positivist research uses process tracing within a case study to highlight Ukraine's real
problems and whether EU membership can help resolve them. The best solution for
Ukraine is to focus on its domestic issues and negotiate with the other actor for a
peaceful solution.

Keywords: EU, Ukraine, State-ness Problem, State Legitimacy, Irredenta.

Introduction

O n February 24, 2022, Russia launched military aggression against its

neighbouring Eastern European state Ukraine. Following the Russian invasion, a
distraught Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, desperately reached out to the
EU, NATO and the US to help Ukraine fight against the foreign invasion. In response,
EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German President Olaf
Scholz and Italian President Mario Draghi, visited Kyiv on June 16, 2022, to announce
that Ukraine would be accepted as an EU candidate member. To everyone's surprise, it
was quickly followed by another announcement on June 23, 2022, that Ukraine will
receive a fast-track EU candidate state status alongside Moldova. The West and its
supporters in Ukraine perceived the announcement as a breakthrough for Ukraine,
hoping it would restore peace and democracy in the country presently experiencing
attrition since the Russian attack.

*Dr Houma Siddiqi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, Faculty of Contemporary
Studies, National Defence University, Islamabad. The author(s) can be reached at houmasiddiqi@ndu.edu.pk.

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14 Houma Siddiqi

Notwithstanding, EU behaviour vis-à-vis Ukraine appears quizzical for several

reasons. First, unlike NATO, which focuses on security and protects its member states,
the EU is principally committed to European integration for economic growth, which
is expected to contribute towards perpetual peace. Over the years, it is delivering its
normative security objectives by integrating economic growth between its member
states.1 Second, EU fast-track membership, which involves accelerated negotiations to
facilitate the implementation of necessary EU rules and regulations, requires stable
democratic institutions and a functioning market economy as a priori. Third, the EU
has consistently demanded democratic consolidation in membership-seeking states.
Democratic consolidation is a contested concept; it goes beyond the procedural
installation of democratic transition, or two-turn test as Samuel Huntington (1991)
advocated, to include permeated pro-democracy behaviours and attitudes. States must
undertake institutional and legislative restructuring in multiple arenas to qualify as a
consolidated democracy.2 The process is lengthy and tedious, taking years to complete,
especially for states transforming from authoritarian rules, like most post-communist
and Eastern European states.3 Such profound change, especially for a war-torn post-
communist Ukraine, in a short period is hard to fathom. Fourth, the EU has shown a
certain reluctance in offering its membership to Eastern European and Balkan states,
which is observable in voting in the European parliament. Earlier, Ukraine was tagged
as an unfit partner by the EU. 4 Thus, Ukraine suddenly receiving fast-track
membership, offered amid war, when it can neither ensure a properly functioning
market economy for collective bargaining nor stable democratic institutions appears
paradoxical and demands deeper inquiry.

At the onset, it is essential to state that the main interest of this research is
not to discuss security dimensions but to see if Ukraine impeded journey towards
democracy can benefit from its EU fast-track membership. It holds implications for
other troubled and war-torn weak democracies if joining a supranational organisation,
like the EU, would help them consolidate as a democracy. To understand what
democratic consolidation connotes, this research draws from the scholarship on
democratisation in general and Linz and Stepan's (1996) seminal work on the
problems of democratic transition and consolidation in Southern Europe, South
America and post-Communist Europe in particular. This scholarship accords
fundamental theoretical and political importance to the issue of ‘state legitimacy’ as a
priori to democratic consolidation. It states that democratic consolidation requires a
pre-existing and legitimate nation-state, “understood as one which enjoys a binding
authority over all of its territory, with no segment of political authority precluded.”5
No matter how democratically a state is constituted, issues of pre-existing and
unresolved state-ness, significant ‘irredenta’ existing outside the state boundaries, and
a considerable polis-demo incongruence encroach negatively on a state’s legitimacy.6

The state-ness problem implies that no political unit or citizen groups

(majority or minority) living in the territory disagree with accepting the government
as a ‘legitimate authority’ to generate policies, collect taxes, and control state forces.
Linz and Stepan (1996) link it to John Stuart Mill's argument that free liberal

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EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its Real Problems? 15

institutions are impossible to build in a state containing mixed nationalities that

exclude ‘fellow feeling’ and a sense of shared identity. The very diverse nature of
society calls for some order.7 If any segment of the state's population stands in
confrontation with the state's authority and demands succession, the state’s legitimacy
gets questioned.8 Empirically state legitimacy becomes subjective to the number of
people standing in opposition; “…the greater the percentage of people in a given
territory who feel they do not want to be members of that territorial unit; however, it
may be reconstituted, the more difficult it will be to consolidate a single democracy
within that unit.”9

For this reason, state legitimacy is taken as a pre-requisite for the free
institutions' requirement of democratic government. Similarly, state-ness problems
resulting from intractable political conflicts are problematic because they do not allow
quick exits. Jack Snyder (2001) research revealed that starting democratisation in the
context of unfinished nation-building is most likely to give way to a ‘lengthy anti-
democratic detour’, inclusive of ethnic conflicts and contests on nationalism.10 This
argument resonates with the US experience discussed by Francis Fukuyama.
Fukuyama (2005) further advises against seeking external actors in the name of
democracy to resolve the state-ness problems due to the internal weakness of the
countries. It tends to undermine the ability of domestic actors, retards the growth of
indigenous capacity, and is most likely to result in ‘authoritarian state-building.’11
Outside powers are also advised not to delude themselves into thinking they can easily
overlook a transition or persuade their voters and taxpayers to provide for external
governance, which will most likely extend indefinitely.12 The scholarship argues that
external organisations, at best, can offer the troubled state its membership ‘as an
incentive’ to take ownership of the state-building process. However, the state is still
required to resolve its internal issues.13

The second variable highlighted by Linz and Stepan (1996) is ‘irredenta’,

which implies that a large minority living within the territorial limits of the state is, or
could be, considered by a neighbouring state as their citizen or irredenta by virtue of
primordial sentiments, descent, or birth.14 The loci of irredenta sentiments are mostly
with the elites of some external state, who closely monitor the behaviour of their co-
ethnics in the other state, vigorously protest the alleged violation of their rights, and
assert their obligation to defend their interests.15 These sentiments can get endorsed
and reciprocated by the representative of the minority within the troubled state.16 In
this, Brubaker (1994) also highlights the problem aggravating if elites of the minority
group in the troubled state experience a ‘shrinking of the political space’ and a need to
reshape the existing social and political structures in their favour. Thus the elites of
the minority group play a critical role in bringing out the legitimacy issue for the
nation-state, which impedes its journey towards consolidation. The failure to integrate
this group into national politics can direct them to consider options like; political
autonomy, succession, or union with the national homeland. As long as a state stays
an arena of competition between such competing groups, it cannot be taken
analytically as an irreducible entity.17 In other words, the state does not qualify as

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16 Houma Siddiqi

legitimate to make binding decisions for the whole population, even if they assume
power under the outer facade of democratic processes.

When confronted with such problems, the routine process of

democratisation, including; elections and referendums (prevalent in EU member
states), policies coming from the top intended to create a single national identity or
forced consent aggravate the problem as they keep appealing to the irredentist
sentiments and successionist aspirations.18 It is because the successionist or minority
groups already are questioning a singular subjective idea of a nation, in this adopting,
consciously or unconsciously, symbols for the state more in line with the dominant
nation, implementing nationalising state policies to increase cultural homogeneity
aggravate the existing problems. Thus, again the scholarship points out that going for
democratisation is likely to become problematic as it keeps reinforcing ethnic
sentiments and ethnic political parties. Seeking any acquiescence or forced consent
from the agitated group as a mode of problem resolution is also ruled out, as the
practices also do not complement the logic of democratic consolidation.19 Linz and
Stepan (1996) advise that political entities must resolve all these problems before
initiating democratic processes, even if it requires complex negotiations and pacts.
Consent must be acquired from all conflicting groups to accept the decision-making
polity as the legitimate entity. Linz and Stepan (1996) warn that the possibility exists
that negotiation may even result in possible territorial re-alignments. Fukuyama
(2005), on the other hand, shows more optimism in the state’s role and believes a little
prudence and creativity may save the day.

Given the above scholarship, it becomes imperative first to understand the

exact nature of the problems in the wake of Ukraine’s democratic consolidation and its
origins, whether it is a state-ness problem, irredenta, or both. The state-ness problem,
in turn, points to the existence of nationalist groups not convinced with the idea of a
singular identity of the state, which prompts them towards restructuring the socio-
political spaces. A question like if such groups in Ukraine existed at the time of its
independence and were crushed or if they surfaced afterwards due to the experiencing
shrinking of political space needs to be understood. Also, Ukraine’s historical linkages
with the two external actors, Russia and the EU, need clear consideration. Especially
the EU, unlike Russia, is not a state but a supranational organisation. Understanding
which mode of governance it employs to integrate the post-Soviet states like Ukraine
is required to evaluate if EU membership would benefit Ukraine and if the process will
help it recover as a democracy. It, in turn, will allow to comment if it is OK for Ukraine
to rush for it. It is also important to state that this qualitative research aims for
prognosis and not prescription; however, the process will offer some space to forward
recommendations.

Methodology and Methods

The methodology selected for this paper is process tracing within the case
study. The rationale for the case study stems from the fact that the member state’s

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EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its Real Problems? 17

predicaments mostly drive accession to the EU; therefore, the exact conditions are best
revealed through an individual case study.20 Collier (2011) and Mahoney (2015) stress
the need for applying process tracing intentionally and rigorously within the case
study to describe and identify novel political and social phenomena and evaluate
causal claims. It includes taking into account intervening antecedent conditions and
sequential analysis, which allows us to observe the causal trajectory, that is, how
variables of interests operationalise through time. The antecedent conditions set the
stage and can be taken as a historical explanation. The sequential analysis demands
that the observed phenomenon at each step in the causal trajectory should be
adequately described. This systematic unpacking of the causal process and centrality
of the fine-grained case knowledge makes process tracing instrumental in cases with
more than one competing explanation or hypothesis. Process tracing allows for
making decisive contributions to diverse research objectives, including evaluating
prior explanatory hypotheses, discovering new ideas, and assessing new causal
claims.21 Inferences are made with the help of four empirical diagnostic tests. To
achieve fine-grained case knowledge, process tracing allows for the use of multiple
methods. This research has also used various ways to unveil the causal trajectory,
including historical accounts, speeches, archived research, institutional reports,
newspaper reports, etc.

The rest of the paper is structured first to elucidate the nature of antecedent
conditions that contributed to Ukraine's state-ness problems – followed by a
discussion on the EU mode of governance and its membership dynamics.
Understanding the above two allow us to see how well-suited the EU's current mode of
governance is to Ukraine’s unique set of problems. It is followed by the analysis, which
draws and accepts the tested inferences to draw a conclusion.

History of Ukraine Independence and Reinstated Relations with

Russia
The antecedent condition for this research is the end of the cold war and the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, which became the reason for Ukraine’s
independence. There is a strong consensus that it was Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev’s reform policies of ‘perestroika’, which launched the restructuring of the
Soviet economy, and ‘glasnost’ meant to liberate Soviet politics which led to a
nationalist uprising and Soviet disintegration. 22 However, Ukraine's polity also
considers itself as the linchpin of Soviet disintegration, attributing it to its President
Leonid Kravchuk’s refusal to sign Mikhail Gorbachev’s union treaty in 1991, which
prompted others to do the same and precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union.23
Despite their claims of Soviet disintegration, the Ukrainian leadership was relegated to
secondary status, and the West showed a certain reluctance in offering its full support
to Ukraine. In 1991, President George W Bush senior openly supported the
continuation of the old order with a more decentralised Soviet Union instead of a free
and independent Ukraine.24 In his infamous speech in Kyiv, President Bush called
Ukrainian democratic aspirations ‘suicidal nationalism.’25 Research also unveils two

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18 Houma Siddiqi

measures the Ukrainian government took, which reflected poorly on it, and dented
Ukraine’s relations with the West and Russia simultaneously in those critical years.
First, it claimed the Russian Fleet in the Black Sea, giving no heed to the fact that the
very existence of the Ukrainian state was subjective to Russia’s decision.26

Second, on March 12, 1992, following the Russian parliament's decision to

examine the legalities of transferring Crimea to Russia, Ukrainian President Kravchuk
halted the removal of tactical missiles to Russia. When the world was preoccupied
with disarmament and non-proliferation, Ukraine came out as an ‘untrustworthy
partner’ willing to jeopardise international peace efforts by the US.27 Highly circulated
American newspapers like New York Times strongly advocated against extending
Western assistance to Ukraine. In contrast, Russia was more responsible than other
post-Soviet communist states.28 In 1994, in a trilateral agreement between Russia,
Ukraine and the US, Ukraine was made to ensure the disarmament of 1800 Soviet
nuclear warheads and unconditionally ratify the START treaty and the Lisbon
Protocol.29

In the crucial years of its inception, Ukraine's leadership was compelled to

discard their idealist notions and analyse the predicaments confronting them with a
realist lens due to the failure to receive the expected attention from the West.
President Kravchuk was pushed to realistically evaluate who served Ukraine's internal
and external interests better, Russia or the US and its Western allies. He felt no
political debt to the US or West 30 and even showed a reluctance to adopt any
economic policy with a clear capitalist shift to avoid further confrontation with the
local communist groups. 31 It expanded the space for the pro-Russian Ukrainian
political groups in the country’s politics. In the 1994 elections, Leonard Kuchma32
easily won and became the second president of Ukraine, reiterating Ukraine's relations
with Russia. In 1997, he signed the Friendship and Cooperation Treaty with Russian
President Boris Yeltsin. The stated objective of bilateral treaties was to confirm the
viability of shared borders, ensure respect for each other’s territorial integrity, develop
good and neighbourly relations between the two historically intertwined states, and
maintain stability and security in Europe and peace in the world.

Interestingly the treaty also made it imperative on the polity of each state to
ensure the hard and economic security of one another and not to take any action, or
engage in any agreement or association which poses a threat to peace, affects the
interests of national security, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other state
(Article 7). If such a situation arises, the treaty obligated the two high contracting
states to hold consultations without delay, exchange relevant information, and
coordinate or take joint measures for problem rectification (Article 7). In other words,
Kyiv agreed to make the pursual of its foreign and security relations subjective to the
consent of the Kremlin. The treaty concluded for ten years initially and was to get
automatically reinstated for the next ten years if none of the high contracting parties
made no formal objection.

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EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its Real Problems? 19

Ukraine State-ness Problem

This research finds two factors contributing to Ukraine’s state-ness problems,
which extend to state-legitimacy problems now. First is the reciprocation of Russia’s
irredenta in the Crimea region, and second is the shrinking of the political space of the
Donbas elites. These economically powerful elites enjoyed strong linkages with
Kremlin and desired control over political decision-making in the newly independent
Ukraine.

a) Reciprocation of Russia's Irredenta in Crimea

Brubaker (1994) stated that although the loci of irredenta are in an external
state, it can become problematic if sentiments get endorsed and reciprocated by the
representative of the minority in the troubled state. The case study points to two
regions in Ukraine that provide strong evidence of reciprocating Russia’s irredenta
sentiments: Crimea and Donbas. The former is a peninsula located on the Black Sea
and historically has remained the most contested region because of its strategic
significance for security and trade. Contestation over the Crimean Peninsula dates to
the late seventieth century with the Ottoman and the Romanov empires, who fought
for the hold of Crimea to control the Black Sea. In 1774, the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca
established Crimea as an independent state for a short while.

Linkages between the people of these regions with Russia developed due to
historical migration and the dislocation of national boundaries.33 In 1783, Catherine II
annexed Crimea declaring it a Russian territory. It was after the collapse of the Russian
empire in 1917 that the Crimean Tatar acquired its control and declared it an
autonomous democratic republic. After the end of the Russian civil war, it first became
Soviet suzerainty, and after the second world war, it was declared an oblast (region) of
the Soviet Union. The predominance of the Russian population in Crimea is attributed
to Romanov Catherine the Great and later Stalin's dislocation policies. Most of the
Russian population in Crimea experienced its status coming down from privileged
state-bearing nationality into a national minority.

There is a consensus that, unlike other Eastern European states, the Kremlin
showed an apparent reluctance to let go of the territory which now constitutes the
southeastern part of Ukraine, especially Crimea. 34 In 1991, just before the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, an attempt was made by the Soviets to give Crimea
its autonomous republic status. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev explicitly
expressed and stressed Russia’s desire to keep Crimea. On March 12, 1992, the Russian
parliament also looked into the legalities of ensuring Crimea was not transferred to
Ukraine. All these attempts failed with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which
passed Crimea to Ukraine despite the USSR’s contested interest in it.

These incidents point to elite irredenta, which also received public support.
The earliest evidence in support comes from the 1989 census, in which a quarter of
Ukrainians first identified themselves as having multiple nationalities. Census

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20 Houma Siddiqi

remuneration followed, asking people to pick one nationality only, in which 22.1% of
the Ukrainian population with shared Russian and Ukraine ancestry gave precedence
to the Russian identity for themselves.35 The census is contested as it was under the
communist regime, but a more recent survey conducted by the Chicago Council of
Global Affairs (2019) shows continued support. In it, 62% of Russian citizens supported
annexing the eastern part of Ukraine to Russia. They did not see it as violating
international laws or treaties.36 Overall, the surveys show that most people in Crimea
identify as Russians, which translates into a state-ness problem for Ukraine, as shown
in the most recent referendum demanding succession from Ukraine.

b) Issue of Political Space of Donbas Elites

The other region is Donbas, situated in the East of Ukraine, the collective
name given to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The case of Donbas is different from
that of Crimea. The region is the heartland of coal mines and large steel mills. At the
time of the first world war, Donbas was the Russian Empire's leading iron and steel
production region. The stratification of the region started due to Stalin’s accelerated
industrial development programme, and many Russian workers migrated to this
economically flourishing region. Today, after agriculture, the Donbas industry is
considered Ukraine's second-largest revenue-producing area, helping Ukraine become
the world's fourth-largest exporter of Iron ore.37 The main iron ore buyers include
China, Türkiye and the EU. The steel made in the Donbas region is transited through
the Black Sea.38

The business community of Donbas, even in the communist era, was

recognised as a politically self-conscious and organised group. In the Soviet Union,
they easily maintained their ‘separate’ league status distinct from the rest of the
Ukrainian community. Donbas status was not of a separate part of Ukraine but that of
an ‘equal’ to Ukraine.39 The people of this prosperous region cherished their linkages
with Russia even after Ukraine's independence. The Donetsk and Luganskaya area
continued using Russian as its official language for over two years. The official time in
the areas remained synchronised according to ‘Moscow standard time’ instead of Kyiv
standard time.40 Initial efforts to integrate them into Ukraine did not give many
positive results. The economic and privatisation reforms implemented by Ukraine
post-independence also favoured Donbas businesses. Yet the latter continued to guard
their autonomy.41 From Kyiv, they demanded, “We do not touch you, and you do not
touch us.”42 It was the democratic transition processes which opened a path for the
politically conscious Donbas elites to direct their attention on Kyiv and directly
control decision-making echelons in Kyiv. The regional oligarchs and bourgeoises
started supporting a centralist party, initially called the ‘Revival of the Regions’ cult
and later named ‘Party of the Regions.’43 It is argued that this was because of their
political ambitions that the significance of Kyiv in the new country was accepted, and
the industry and mill owners started accepting that the development of Ukraine’s
national economy was imperative for them; otherwise, the stream of profit coming
towards them would end sooner or later.44

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EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its Real Problems? 21

In the 1998 elections, the Donbas elites’ ‘Party of the Regions’ competed
against Kyiv’s ‘Social Democratic United Party’ to usher Donbas' very own candidate
Viktor Yanukovych to succeed Ukraine’s second-elected President Kuchma. However,
it is important to note that the presidential victory was not straightforward, and
Yanukovych faced much resistance. Many regional political elites, who had won their
way into the Kyiv legislative assembly, made plans to elect Yanukovych as the prime
minister instead. The three rounds of a parliamentary election that followed turned
out to be highly polarised relentless competition between “regional parties fighting for
national identification instead of a legitimate process of elite political rotation.”45 It
was in 2010 when Donbas candidate Yanukovych finally won the presidential elections,
which finally satisfied the Donbas political elites, and they also left the Communist
Party of Ukraine.

Introduction of External Actors

The triumph was short-lived, and the end was devastating for Ukraine. From
the onset, President Yanukovych faced problems in Kyiv from Ukrainian elites and
bureaucrats.46 To save his position, Yanukovych took two steps which significantly
changed the course of events for Ukraine and the regional dynamics. First, he
extended Russia’s lease for the Sevastopol Port in Crimea till 2042. Russia was also
allowed to maintain air bases and station 25,000 troops in Crimea - the seaport that
held strategic significance for Donbas' iron and steel businesses and its safe transit
through the Black Sea. The second step included not signing the ‘Association of Unity’
agreement with the EU. Both actions earned Yanukovych a ‘pro-Russia’ title, but they
were also in line with the provisions of the pre-existing friendship and cooperation
treaty (1997) ratified between Russia and Ukraine. The treaty, as stated, gave eminence
to Russia's consent in Ukraine's decision-making, especially related to security in the
region. Ukraine signed this treaty after feeling dejected by the West at its inception to
ensure Ukraine’s territorial integrity, security and development of good and
neighbourly relations with historically intertwined Russia.

The decisions, nonetheless, went against the interests and expansion agenda
of the other external actor – the EU. It is important to note that the EU was a non-
player during the Soviet disintegration and Ukraine’s independence. At that time, it
existed as the European Economic Community (EEC) of ten European states, which
has evolved from the earlier success of the European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC). In the bipolar world, EEC's significance rested mainly as a US alley, while the
US was at the forefront in international and bilateral negotiations linked to Soviet
disintegration and Ukraine's independence. Even in the 1997 Friendship and
Cooperation Treaty, in which Russia and Ukraine were high contracting parties, the
US and the UK played the role of external actors. EEC formally became the ‘European
Union’ after the 1993 Maastricht treaty, with 12 member states declaring to safeguard
its members' shared values, fundamental interests and independence.

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22 Houma Siddiqi

American scholars such as J. J. Mearsheimer (1995), in his famous article “The

False Promise of International Institutions,” criticised the emergence of the EU in the
post-communist era. Post-Amsterdam Treaty (1999), the EU evolved as a
supranational organisation touted for creating democratic deficits in its member
states. The problem with the supranational organisation is that while they facilitate a
common integrative approach through persuasion and discourse, they acquire
authority over interstate relations and involve the loss of national sovereignty in areas
of public interest.47 The EU became more supranational after the 2007 Lisbon Treaty.
Unlike its earlier practice of neo-functionalism, which incorporated non-state actors,
businesses and entrepreneurs in policy decisions, the EU mode of governance became
predominantly (neo)intergovernmental, giving legitimacy to executive-based decision-
making only. The executive was freed from seeking help from stakeholders, non-state
actors, or entrepreneurs. However, the top-down decision-making, in turn, created
democratic deficits in member states.48 In this conflicted paradigm, the EU also
outsourced creating acceptability for itself to membership-seeking states, which were
burdened with construing acceptability and compatibility for the EU by themselves.49

Post-2007 EU rigidness with its supranational and using inter-

governmentalism to acquire consent has hit all member states negatively. These
predicaments are pronounced for post-communist states facing authoritarian
institutions and institutional inertia. These institutions cannot pin down their
interests and preferences ahead of the negotiations processes with the EU.50 Multiple
case studies highlight that post-communist membership-seeking states consistently
find themselves in a weak negotiating position and concede much more in
membership negotiations.51 The EU easily acquire precedence over agenda-setting.52
Once decisions are reached at the EU level, they cannot be outweighed by the member
state unilaterally.53

Furthermore, this research finds it hard to ignore the historical significance of

the iron and steel industry for the EU. Modernisation, the end of the second world
war, and the rebuilding of Europe gave centrality to Europe's iron ore and steel
industry. Even at the time of the Declaration of Peace (1950), where the EU premises
were set, French Statesman R. Schuman categorically proposed to place the
“production of coal and steel as a whole under a common higher authority, within the
framework of an organisation open to the participation of the other countries of
Europe.” The idea was linked to maintaining peaceful relations for an organised and
living Europe. Thus, it can be said that the EU's interest in Ukraine’s Donbas steel
industry was natural. However, Yanukovych's (from Donbas) decision to scuttle away
from going ahead with the association of unity with the EU was also the result of the
astringent conditions set by the EU for the dislocation cost of Ukrainian industry for
going with the EU. 54 This which do not always serve the later interests of the
inexperienced post-communist states with weak institutions.

Viktor Yanukovych’s decision was a critical juncture for Ukraine, factors

driving his rationality became second place, and a two-month-long organised civil

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EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its Real Problems? 23

society movement was launched against him. Yanukovych was relentlessly tagged as
anti-establishment and pro-Russian; in contrast, Euro-Atlantic relationships and
associations with the EU were tagged as patriotic and national. A growing body of
independent researchers blames the EU for funding civil society protests against
Yanukovych for walking out of signing an agreement with the EU.55 Against these
independent researchers, this research also found non-state organisation reports
stating that the protest was triggered because Yanukovych used state power against
civilians' right to protest, implementing restricting laws and adopting repressive
tactics.56 Further checks came from the election results that followed the Maidan
Square protests and Petro Poroshenko election campaign, substantiating that Ukraine
was not entirely protesting in support of the EU or West.57

Expanding to State- Legitimacy Issue

EU involvement in ousting Yanukovych comes at a critical juncture for
Ukraine. It affected Ukraine in two significant ways: First, it threatened Russia’s
security interests in the region and sent a message that segments within Ukraine, with
the aid of external actors, the EU, are likely to disregard the pre-existing bilateral
Friendship and Cooperation Treaty of 1997. Russia wasted little time and formally
announced it would take over Crimea from Ukraine and immediately annex Crimea.58
Second, it angered the Donbas region's power elites as they witnessed their frontman
Yanukovych’s humiliation in Kyiv. 59 The politically proactive elites of Donbas
construed the episode as shrinking of political space for them in Ukraine and launched
a demand for succession from Ukraine.

Sequencing the events shows that the state legitimacy problem for Ukraine
was not a direct result of Ukraine's state-ness problems but evolved after Donbas elites
were ousted from Kyiv and experienced a shrinking of political space in Ukraine. It led
to the referendum in May 2014, which acquired collective support of succession from
Ukraine and a desire to reunite with Russia.60 The referendum results are particularly
problematic for Ukraine, as it shows 99.23% of voters in the Donbas region and
98.42% of voters in the Luhansk region strongly favoured reunification with Russia.61 It
is problematic because these referendums question Ukraine's ability to exist as an
irreducible entity.

By sponsoring civil society agitation, the EU played a role in adding stridence

and cacophony to the internal politics of Ukraine. It so far refuses to recognise the
referendum results, and neither do other Western European states.62 This behaviour
does not conform with the EU's usual behaviour, as referendums are very popular
within the EU to extract public preferences. They are commonly accepted within the
EU and often result in the rejection of policy decisions by EU member states. Thus, the
EU shows double standards in rejecting the referendum results held in Donbas and
Luhansk regions. These referendums are criticised for exacerbating intrastate
grievances by providing a popular mandate for discarding compromise, a hallmark of
functioning democratic systems. 63 On the other hand, the statelets' decision is

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24 Houma Siddiqi

recognised by Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Syria and the breakaway Georgian

provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.64

Kyiv's inability to effectively unite Ukraine as a single entity has extended

Ukraine's politically manageable state-ness problem to a serious state legitimacy issue.
It will directly impair Kyiv's authority in future associations to sign international
treaties, including membership of the EU, on behalf of the whole of Ukraine.

Fast Track Membership as a Solution to Ukraine Problems

It brings us to the position to evaluate if the EU’s fast membership, offered to
Ukraine amid the crisis, will provide an amicable solution to Ukraine’s unique set of
problems. Digging deep into the sequence of events, starting from the independence
of Ukraine to the present day, this research finds that Ukraine's position as a single
entity is now compromised. The strong divisions within Ukraine have led to
succession demands, because of which Kyiv does not enjoy the political legitimacy to
represent all of Ukraine. As a result, any decision made in Kyiv by the executive,
including joining the EU and any subsequent decisions, will lack ownership in the
troubled part of Ukraine, especially in the iron and steel industry region.

Suppose it is assumed that the EU will not consider the compromised

position of Kyiv or the depleted state of democracy and continue giving Ukraine the
status of a permanent member. In that case, it will reflect poorly on the EU. European
states, like the Balkans, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye,
which are not extended permanent membership due to their inability to consolidate
‘as per EU standards’, will object and demand inclusion. If the EU refuses them, the EU
stance on European integration will get questioned, and the impression that the EU is
still engaged in a cold war with Russia will emerge.

Furthermore, it will take a long time for divided and worn-torn Ukraine, a
post-communist state, to develop institutions and consolidate as a democracy – a
necessary condition for EU permanent membership. With the present weak state of
the country and institutions, EU experts will have no problem dominating
negotiations, which may not go in Ukraine's favour in the long run, like the 1997
friendship treaty. Moreover, it would not be easy for Ukraine to come out of any
agreements and treaties it signs with the EU in the future. Also, Ukraine should not
ignore that states outside Western Europe face difficulty acquiring a collective
decision favouring them from the EU. The EU's current mode of governance also
informs that getting into fast-track membership with the EU is anti-democratic and
will not help Ukraine recover as a democracy. Ukraine should not go ahead with EU
membership without consolidating as a democracy; it will have to do all the hard work
itself. Accepting fast-track membership and pushing the government to implement
unsupported policies will likely open the door for what Fukuyama called ‘authoritarian
state-building’ in Ukraine. The recommended path to Ukraine is negotiating with all
the grieved parties and resolving its domestic problems. Without it, Ukraine can never

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EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its Real Problems? 25

stabilise or consolidate as a democracy; at best, its pro-West governments will become

a puppet regime of the EU.

Conclusion
Although in the present Ukraine-Russia crisis, the smoking gun evidence goes
against Russia and joining the EU appears as a good solution for Ukraine, this research
concludes that this is not entirely correct, nor is the proposed solution good for
Ukraine. In 1991, Ukraine’s anxiety was linked to Russia's claims over some areas and
the cold Western attitude toward Ukrainian leadership. As a result, Ukrainian
decision-makers decided to join hands with Russia and signed a friendship treaty
which compromised its rights as a sovereign state. The structuring of Ukrainian
internal politics in concert with the democratic transition processes unleashed the
various dimensions of its state-ness problem but was still politically manageable.
When these players started invigorating the past linkages and involved external actors,
Ukraine's state-ness problems were aggravated. The involvement of external actors
and mismanagement by political actors comes out as the factors which transformed
the manageable state-ness problems into state-legitimacy issues, claiming Ukraine as a
single entity void. Now Ukraine again finds itself in a position of compromise as it
seeks a solution to its problems, this time getting ushered towards the EU.
Considering how the EU operates, which is now being extensively criticised for
extracting consensus from the executive level, over-riding state sovereignty,
negligence of local issues and giving eminence to non-state actors over the state’s
interests do not appear as the right solution for the troubled state of Ukraine or to
help it resolve its unique set of problems.

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26 Houma Siddiqi

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