Ukraine’s EU membership will take ‘probably 15 or 20 years’

“You have to be honest. (…) If we say that Ukraine will join the EU in 6 months, 1 year or 2 years, we are lying. It is not true. It is probably 15 or 20 It’s a year, it’s too long,” said Clement Bunin on Radio J.

“I don’t want Ukrainians to be sold illusions and lies. If Ukrainians are told: ‘Welcome to the EU’, but you haven’t read about the contract, in + hello it is in 15 years +, me Looks like tomorrow we are preparing despair for a whole generation of Ukrainian people”, he continued.

“In the meantime, we owe the Ukrainians (…) a political project that they can enter”, Mr. Bunin continued.

The European Political Community, proposed by President Macron, is “complementary to the EU” and can “offer a political and concrete project to countries that are not at the center of the EU and who want to come closer to us”, again the minister. he said .

“It is not a closed door but an open door on the contrary”, he said, citing pel-mail advantages such as “free movement in Europe” and in benefits “from the European budget for reconstruction and for revival tomorrow”. Being able to be able, he said. “Ukraine’s, probably common energy policies.

The issue of EU expansion in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova is causing controversy and differences within the union.

Ukrainian diplomacy chief Dimitro Koulba on Thursday condemned “second-class behavior” from “certain capitals” regarding Ukrainian candidacy to join the European Union.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz previously said he was not in favor of giving Ukraine a “shortcut” to EU membership.

In his speech on the occasion of Europe Day, 9 May, Mr Macron insisted that Ukraine, invaded by Russia, was already “a member of the heart of our union”.

But he estimated that the process of joining the EU, for which Kyiv aspires, would take “several years, several decades in fact”. He, in parallel, proposed the creation of a “new European organization”.

“We cannot be kept at a distance”, President Volodymyr Zelensky replied on Saturday, before continuing: “We do not need options for Ukraine’s candidacy for the EU, we do not need such an agreement”.

Asked about this reaction, the French minister said he “understood” Volodymyr Zelensky because integration into the EU “mobilizes its people”. “But I answer: European membership, let’s be honest, it takes time”.