Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
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I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two issues: Ukraine and Moldova opening EU talks in June and the so-called Czech ammunition initiative.
Briefing #1: Ukraine And Moldova Set For Late June EU Accession Talks
What You Need To Know: Everything is set up for Ukraine and Moldova to officially open EU accession talks on June 25 in Luxembourg, with the bloc keen to hold what are known in EU parlance as Intergovernmental Conferences (IGC) to mark the occasion.
The European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, presented an oral update on both countries to representatives from the 27 EU member states on June 7 in Brussels. According to the update, later distributed in written form to EU capitals and obtained by RFE/RL, the two countries had completed all the reforms that were required of them, which largely dealt with rule-of-law issues.
In the case of Moldova, all of the 27 EU member states agreed with the assessment that the country had completed its reforms. For Ukraine, 26 countries agreed, with one exception: Hungary.
Budapest has continued to argue that Ukraine still hasn't done enough to safeguard the rights of its ethnic Hungarian minority in the country. Ensuring the rights of national minorities was one of the four conditions Ukraine had to fulfill.
For a moment, it looked like no IGC would take place at the end of the month for either country. (Their paths are coupled in this process.) What needs to happen for the two IGCs to go ahead in June is for EU members to unanimously agree on Ukraine's and Moldova's respective negotiation frameworks, which will essentially plot the path of the enlargement road ahead. EU ambassadors were hoping to adopt these frameworks on June 12, but Hungary insisted it wasn't ready to sign off. There was, however, a late reprieve on June 14 with a compromise that Budapest, the rest of the EU, and Ukraine could all live with.
Deep Background: To understand the process, it makes sense to start with what was said in the oral update on Ukraine's progress regarding national minorities.
Firstly, the written version of the document outlines what Kyiv did in early 2024 to comply with the European Commission's requirements, including adopting a methodology for the use of national minority languages, producing a road map on education for minorities, and the creation of a Council of Public Associations of National Minorities.
The update also notes that Kyiv recently set up a financial compensation mechanism for translations of election material between minority languages and Ukrainian. The document notes that Ukraine has "enacted several laws and taken implementing measures in order to address the remaining [European Commission's] Venice Commission recommendations from June 2023 and October 2023 linked to the law on national minorities and to the laws on state language, media, and education."
It then concluded that "while noting that the Venice Commission has not pronounced itself on the follow-up given to its recommendation, the commission considers that Ukraine has taken all the necessary measures. This step is thus completed."
Drilling Down
- According to many accounts of the meeting on June 7, representatives from all countries present gave their clear support for the commission's assessment on Ukraine and asked that the framework be quickly adopted so that the IGC can go ahead on June 25. Hungary, however, remained a stickler, mentioning 11 issues that Budapest said Ukraine hasn't addressed.
- Broadly speaking, those issues can be boiled down to three main areas: restoring the status of the national minority school system; restoring the right to speak minority languages when dealing with state authorities; and restoring the right to political representation on a regional as well as national level.
- What Hungary essentially wants is to go back to what Ukrainian legislation looked like before 2015, when Kyiv started amending laws on national minorities and state languages. Those amendments, which were driven by a desire to reduce the amount of Russian spoken, led to the increased usage of Ukrainian in public institutions, such as schools.
- In this respect, Budapest wanted to add two amendments to the negotiation framework and in the opening statement of the potential IGC. First, Budapest wanted it noted in both documents that Ukraine needs to produce an action plan dedicated to the protection of the rights of national minorities. And second, Budapest asked for written references in the negotiation framework to two documents from 1991: the Treaty On The Foundations Of Good Neighborly Relations And Cooperation, signed by Ukraine and Hungary in 1991; and the declaration on the principles of cooperation between Hungary and Ukraine in guaranteeing the rights of national minorities.
- In the compromise text, agreed on June 14, the action plan required by Hungary is included along with a statement that the "the right of persons belonging to national minorities should be protected, in line with the constitution of Ukraine. Furthermore, Ukraine is expected to implement relevant bilateral agreements with EU member states."
- Also noted in the compromise document was that the European Commission will monitor Kyiv's implementation of minority rights reforms and report regularly to EU member states.
- This might not seem like too much to ask for, but other member states are unhappy that bilateral issues are being dragged into the enlargement negotiations at such an early stage. They fear -- with some foundation -- that Budapest can veto every step of the way by suggesting that Kyiv isn't protecting national minorities enough.
- Bilateral issues between a member state and a candidate country often slow down the EU accession process. Just look at Bulgaria's refusal to sign off on North Macedonia opening accession talks due to Skopje not amending its constitution to reflect Bulgarians as a founding people.
- On the other hand, many diplomats I spoke to are at least happy that the concrete references to specific bilateral treaties between Hungary and Ukraine are gone from the document. They also noted that a compromise on this issue always looked possible, especially as Hungary is taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, one of the main decision-making bodies of the bloc, on July 1 and is expected to not keep Ukraine high on the agenda for the next six months. So, there was pressure to finalize everything by the end of June.
- There is now just one small hurdle that needs to be cleared before the IGC can go ahead: a debate and vote on the frameworks in the Dutch parliament on June 20. (The Netherlands is the only country taking this step.) This should be a formality with a pro-Ukraine majority in parliament, but since the Dutch general elections in November 2023, lawmakers have become more enlargement skeptic.
Briefing #2: The Limitations Of Czech Ammunition
What You Need To Know: Much has been said about the inability of the West to provide Ukraine with enough artillery ammunition in its war against Russia. There was much consternation in Brussels when the European Union failed with its initiative, announced in early 2023, to provide Kyiv with 1 million 155 mm shells by March of this year.
In the end, around half of the proposed amount was delivered, with another pledge that the EU provide the remaining ammunition by the end of 2024.
Ukraine is still being outgunned on the battlefield. During last summer's offensive, it fired 7,000 artillery shells a day, which fell to below 2,000 in the early spring of this year compared to Russia, which at some point was pounding Ukrainian lines with between 10,000 and 20,000 shells daily.
It was during this critical time in early spring that a new ammunition enterprise hit the headlines, led by the Czech Republic. The country's president, Petr Pavel, told the audience at the Munich Security Conference on February 17 that Prague had identified 800,000 artillery shells globally that could be directed to Ukraine at very short notice.
There are a few points worth clarifying here. Firstly, acquiring ammunition from non-EU states and sending it to Ukraine is not a new thing. The mechanism has been around since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. The initiative has only recently caught the media's attention, however.
Secondly, it is not just the Czechs but actually a joint Czech-Danish-Dutch initiative. And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the 800,000 figure mentioned by Pavel was just a "milestone," as one Czech government official who wanted to remain anonymous told me. It was not an amount of ammunition that the Czech Republic and its two partners already had in their possession and were ready to provide to Ukraine.
Deep Background: After media coverage of the "Czech ammunition initiative," more Western countries have gotten on board. But have they really? And will it have much impact? The jury is out on both counts.
Since the war broke out, the Czechs, Danish, and Dutch have provided Ukraine with over 1.3 million rounds of different types of caliber ammunition. This month, the first batch of shells will go to Ukraine since the initiative became an established enterprise. It is expected that Ukraine will receive between 50,000-100,000 shells, with another around 80,000 ordered. By the end of the year, Czech government officials have said that figure should reach 500,000 rounds worth 1.7 billion euros ($1.8 billion).
At the end of May, the three countries, along with Canada, Germany, and Portugal, were the only ones that had actually sent money to Ukraine for the purchase of ammunition, with another 10 in the process of doing so but still grappling with government bureaucracy or parliamentary and budgetary committee approvals.
Officials in Prague estimate that Kyiv now needs some 200,000 shells per month in order to just be able to hold the Russians at bay. This costs an estimated 7 billion to 10 billion euros per year. There are also other ammunition initiatives in place, including one by Ukraine itself and one led by the United States.
Drilling Down
- So why is it proving so hard to steadily supply Ukraine with sufficient ammunition? Surprisingly, it is not so much about production capacity, even though that is an issue in Europe. According to Tomas Kopecny, a Czech diplomat who is very much at the center of the initiative, there are "single digit of millions of rounds of ammunition that we are competing for." Speaking recently to a group of journalists in Prague, including RFE/RL, he said it was first and foremost a coordination job among allies to make sure they weren't overpaying.
- It all really comes down to money -- essentially making sure there is enough cash flow to make prepayments and then the ability to come up with the funds quicker than Russia and its partners. That is largely what determines what side of the conflict the shells end up in. Essentially, the ammo market is like any other, with producers selling to the highest bidder. And since the war started, the price of shells has quadrupled.
- Diplomats have been reticent about saying where the ammunition is coming from as the sellers prefer to keep a low profile, partly out of the fear of being pressurized by the other side in the conflict, either by diplomatic or economic means.
- It's not just about money, though, but also political will. France has been reluctant to use EU money to purchase military equipment and ammunition outside the bloc, and Cyprus is reluctant that any cash go to Turkey, a significant producer of ammunition and military equipment.
- With enough money and enough political will, the West can still help Ukraine. The EU didn't hesitate, for the first time in its history, to utilize joint borrowing -- where the bloc collectively raised funds by issuing bonds on behalf of all its member states -- to the tune of 800 billion euros to counter the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kopecny noted that just a fraction of such a figure, meaning contributions in tens of billions of euros or dollars, would "totally change the landscape in Ukraine's favor in the war."
Looking Ahead
This evening, on June 17, there will be an informal meeting of EU leaders. This is the first time the 27 heads of state and government will assemble in Brussels after the European Parliament elections on June 6-9 to assess the results. There will also be an initial discussion on who should be the next European Commission president, European Council president, and EU foreign policy chief, although it is expected that the leaders will take the final decision on those key posts at another EU summit in Brussels next week.
That's all for this week. And just a reminder that, starting next week, this newsletter will be published -- or arrive in your inbox if you're a subscriber -- on Tuesday mornings.
Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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