Ukraine wants to join the European Union quickly as a guarantee of its future security and has made that a priority in negotiations for a peace agreement with Russia.
Yet Kyiv’s path into the Brussels-based bloc is fraught with obstacles.
Joining the European Union generally takes years, and Ukraine’s bid for admission presents economic and governance hurdles. Several solutions are up for discussion, including a plan that would phase in E.U. benefits slowly and a limit to Kyiv’s veto power on critical decisions.
Creating a phased-in version of membership could set a precedent, permanently changing what it means to join the bloc, though, and some European Union leaders have pushed back on Ukraine’s request to set a clear timeline for its membership.
Here is what to know about the possibilities.
How does a country join the European Union?
The bloc has 27 members and has not added one since Croatia in 2013. There are nine nations on the waiting list, and Ukraine started the process in 2022.
There’s a reason for the long line. Joining the European Union comes with big benefits. It allows more seamless access to a giant consumer market, enables freer movement of labor and comes with subsidies for important industries.
Entering also requires work. Candidate nations must prove low levels of corruption, well-functioning democracies and strong rule of law.
Passing those tests takes time — nine years on average. The final checks typically take a year or more. While some drafts of a proposed peace plan have mentioned Ukraine’s joining the European Union in 2027 — a date President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to suggest — it would be all but impossible to move through the usual process that quickly.
Marta Kos, the E.U. commissioner who works on enlargement of the bloc, acknowledged on the sidelines of the recent Munich Security Conference that it would not be feasible to bring Ukraine into the European Union so quickly using the existing process. But she said that the procedure needed to change and that Europe was “discussing” how.
“Bringing Ukraine into the European Union is not enlargement,” Ms. Kos added. “It is unifying Europe.”
Why is Ukraine a priority?
European officials want to bring Ukraine into the fold rapidly, in part because doing so could encourage Kyiv to accept other parts of the peace deal. Europe is also trying to illustrate that it has a big role to play in securing peace and should not be left on the negotiating sidelines by the United States and Russia.
Russia has suggested that it does not oppose E.U. membership for Ukraine, and peace plans drafted by the Trump administration have referred to the possibility of Ukraine joining the bloc.
Fast-tracking Ukraine’s entry into the European Union — or at least setting a clear entry date — could also help unlock private investment for the country’s postwar reconstruction, Ukrainian and European officials say.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union’s executive arm, has called a path to membership “a key security guarantee in its own right.”
Yet she also pushed back this week Mr. Zelensky’s request for a concrete and imminent date to join.
“From our side, dates by themselves are not possible,” she said at a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday.
Why is Ukraine especially tricky?
Adding Ukraine won’t be easy. The nation is large — about the size of Poland in population — and economically challenged after years of war. There are concerns that, if it joined the European Union, a flood of workers could enter the rest of the bloc, and that the nation would require substantial E.U. funding for economic development.
Ukraine is also an agricultural powerhouse. That could be a threat for member states with big farming bases, like France, since their own producers would have to compete with Ukrainian grains and other goods.
“Full membership for Ukraine will be a huge challenge, both for Ukraine and for the E.U., because it’s a large country and not very wealthy,” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski of Poland said on Monday in Brussels.
Respect for rule of law is also a central part of joining the European Union, and Ukraine has been wrestling with the fallout of a corruption scandal. The Ukrainian government has in recent years removed oversight guardrails, according to a New York Times investigation.
Finally, approving new members requires unanimity among other bloc countries, and Ukraine’s bid has already struggled to win full support. So far, Hungary has blocked efforts to move Kyiv to the next steps.
What could European officials do?
One line of thinking is that Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, is unlikely to block Ukraine’s membership if President Trump — whom Mr. Orban sees as an ally — pushes for it to happen.
Mr. Orban could also lose power during Hungarian elections in April. But the opposition party has also said it opposes a speedy path into the bloc for Ukraine, so that may not immediately clear Kyiv’s way.
If Hungary remains an opponent, European officials could try to find workarounds for Ukraine to join the bloc without unanimous consent.
“If they’re to do this, it’s going to require enormous reform,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, a research organization.
European officials have also been contemplating the possibility of a “light” version of membership.
There are multiple scenarios up for discussion. Under such a plan, Ukraine would gain access to the European market gradually and might unlock access to subsidies only over time and after reforms. By phasing in the benefits, it might be possible to soften the impact on farmers and the E.U. budget. If Ukraine were to slip on rule of law or other standards, it wouldn’t advance.
The idea would be to avoid a situation where Ukraine joined the union, only to descend into corruption while taking up resources.
European officials have also suggested that Ukraine might be able to join without full voting rights.
What could the fallout be?
Allowing Ukraine to join on a fast track, or with abbreviated rights, would risk creating a two-tier system within the European Union, one in which some countries were treated as lesser members.
That could create a precedent and might risk either sidelining or moving the goal posts for nations like Albania, Moldova and Montenegro, which have been working steadily on joining the bloc.
There are already some areas in which member states are not all equal. Cyprus does not fully have access to the bloc’s free movement benefits, and Denmark, Hungary and Poland do not use the euro.
And there’s a clear reason for the bloc to work through the challenges.
“Everyone wants to keep the U.S., Ukraine and Europe on the same page,” said Kurt Volker, an American former ambassador to NATO.
Constant Méheut contributed reporting.
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
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