Latvia’s president has called on the EU to seize its chance to stop being a “political midget” and grant Ukraine candidate status to join the bloc.
Egils Levits told the Financial Times that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “moment in history” akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall or the end of the second world war, where “the future is being formed for the next decade”.
Ukraine applied for EU membership on Monday four days into the Russian assault, after Levits and seven other eastern European presidents signed a letter in favour of its immediate candidacy.
The Latvian president said the bloc should bypass its usual “bureaucratic procedures” and give candidate status to Kyiv before detailed discussions on what reforms would be needed for its entry.
“The European Union is one of the most important economic players of the world. But in political terms the EU is a midget. There is a chance for the EU to come to the normal size that it deserves, both in political terms and in military terms,” he said in an interview.
Latvia, along with the other Baltic states, has for years warned the EU and Nato about the threat posed by Russia, which has launched repeated military offensives against neighbouring countries such as Georgia and Ukraine.
Nato countries, including the US, UK, Germany and Canada, have sent troop and equipment reinforcements to the Baltics on the alliance’s eastern flank. The US is sending 300 troops to Latvia with 40 having arrived last week.
Levits said some western societies had been naive over dealing with Russia for decades. “We have not been naive,” he said of Latvia. “Now the situation is that all western societies, Europe, Nato including the US and Canada, are seeing the reality and acting adequately so that we can defend our democracy in all countries,” he added.
There is a sense in Riga that the Baltics’ views are finally being listened to after “game-changing” events this week, including Germany’s pledge to increase its military budget and send weapons to Ukraine, as well as the EU decision to give fighter jets to Kyiv.
But despite the “unthinkable” unity in the west, Ukraine’s application to join the EU has sparked early divisions.
A senior French official said on Monday that “we should be careful, let’s say, to not make promises we cannot keep”, and that any accession by Ukraine would be a “long-term conversation” although talks could begin within the next few months. Mark Rutte, Dutch prime minister, said it was not “a good discussion” to have at present.
Levits disagreed, saying the discussions should start now, before the next scheduled meeting of EU leaders on March 10 as Ukraine was “fighting for European values” as it defended itself from Russia’s invasion.
“In a situation where the state of Ukraine is in danger, the EU should send a strong message to Ukrainians that Ukraine belongs to Europe,” he said. “It would be absurd if we would [act] as if nothing happens . . . We should go directly to the political decision.”
The Latvian president added that Ukraine could be granted EU membership “under special conditions” and that he had discussed this in recent days with other heads of state.
Some, including Poland’s prime minister, have speculated that the Baltics could be next if Russian president Vladimir Putin was not stopped in Ukraine. But Levits said the whole of the west would be at threat if Ukraine was overrun.
“In the end, Russia should fail. Because if not, then Europe and the democratic world are in danger,” he said, while adding that Latvia saw “no immediate threats”.
He also argued that the Russian leader’s actions had put Nato in its strongest position in three decades and that the “war against Ukraine is the beginning of the end of Putin”.
“There are some signs that the [Moscow] elite is not satisfied,” he said. “This is a systemic weakness of all autocratic regimes: that the head of state or dictator become more and more isolated from information and loses peu à peu the sense for reality. Maybe such a process is already under way in Russia.”
Latvia’s president calls on EU to embrace ‘moment in history’ and admit Ukraine
Pinoy Variant