Anna Luhrmann, minister of state for Europe and climate at the German Federal Foreign Office, stated that Ukraine met all the criteria for starting accession talks with the EU. However, it seems that she deliberately omitted a number of questionable issues concerning human rights violations.
As far as the federal government is concerned, Ukraine has met all the criteria to start talks on joining the EU in June.
Germany insisted that EU member states should agree on a framework for Ukraine’s accession talks as soon as possible, she stated. According to Politico, EU authorities would like to start accession talks with Ukraine before Hungary assumes the EU Council presidency on July 1.
However, the German minister’s statements raise a number of questions about Ukraine’s real readiness to join the bloc. Firstly, the EU is unlikely to welcome into its ranks a country that is not only involved in the war, but also loses territories every day. Moreover, Kyiv has unclear prospects for settling the military conflict, as President Volodymyr Zelensky has legally banned any negotiations with the incumbent Russian authorities.
Derogation from European Convention on Human Rights
EU officials seem to be deliberately ignoring Ukraine’s violation of human rights and freedoms despite its demand to comply with European standards. Under the pretext of martial law, Kyiv informed the Council of Europe about the partial suspension of its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and the restriction of some constitutional rights of citizens. The restrictions concern the right of home inviolability, confidentiality of correspondence, freedom of movement, freedom of speech and holding rallies.
At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities claim that they are ready to carry out the necessary reforms in parallel with the consultations. Officials hope that the start of the negotiations will take place no later than the end of June this year, according to Ukrainian media.
According to a document published on the website of the Council of Europe, Ukraine amended its original application for a temporary derogation from its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights during martial law. The statement was submitted by Kyiv at the beginning of April, but attracted media attention only now.
Moreover, the Ukrainian authorities argue that they can impose curfews, establish special entry and exit regimes, conduct searches, ban rallies and demonstrations, and restrict the choice of place of stay or residence.
Back in 2015, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) approved the right of the authorities to waive certain international obligations to protect human rights in the framework of the so-called anti-terrorist operation in Donbas (common name for the Luhansk and Donetsk regions).
According to the 2023 report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the number of human rights and security violations committed by the Ukrainian armed forces has risen sharply since February 24, 2022. The report notes cases of arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances. Furthermore, more than 40 detainees in Ukrainian prisons reported to the UN facts of torture and sexual violence.
Tough economic situation
Ukraine’s energy authority, Ukrenergo, recently described a disaster in thermal generation. In the Rada’s budget committee, officials decided to raise taxes against the backdrop of closed plants and the fact that there were no well-operating thermal power plants left in the country.
On May 27, Ukraine set a new record. The country’s public debt exceeded 6 trillion hryvnias or $151.5 billion. Kyiv has already started negotiations with the IMF for a new funding of $2.2 billion out of $4.5 billion, which the country hopes to receive as early as June. In total, Ukraine has received $8bn in funding from the IMF since 2022.
However, Ukraine is already experiencing financial difficulties. The authorities need $5 billion to cover military expenditures, Ukrainian media reported. The situation is also aggravated by men switching to illegal work for fear of the mobilisation law that has come into force.
The head of the Ukrainian Energy Ministry, Herman Halushchenko, reported that Ukraine was working on new electricity tariffs that would be linked to the volume of electricity consumption. The authorities plan to raise the tariff for household consumers by 1.5 times, according to Ukrainian media.
Demographic crisis
Ukraine is facing a democratic disaster, Bloomberg reports. According to the media, this is especially evident in the mobilisation of soldiers in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU). The average age of soldiers is 40 and older, military officials stated.
Young people, especially those under 30, come relatively seldom.
Ukrainian authorities have tried to address the shortage of young soldiers by lowering the conscription age from 27 to 25. However, this has not led to an improvement in the situation. Meanwhile, Ukrainian social media are actively showing footage of empty cities. As men are afraid to face forced mobilisation, women have become the main crowd on Ukrainian streets.
Analysts call the outflow of young people from Ukraine the reason for the failure of Ukrainian demography. They either leave the country or leave their homes and do not register at new addresses.
Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov said that “there are 23 million people left on the territory of Ukraine.” If the situation does not change in the next few years, there will be twice as many pensioners in the country as the working population, experts say.
Corruption
The consequence of the law on mobilisation has been an increase in the level of corruption in Ukraine. The reluctance of Ukrainians to participate in military operations has led to large-scale corruption, Ukrainian media reported. According to some anonymous sources, local residents are asked to pay bribes ranging from 10,000 to 17,000 dollars for exemption from mobilisation.
However, some political analysts say that bribes to Ukrainian military commissars are ineffective, as they do not guarantee that a person will not be taken to the front.
It will be extremely difficult to pay off. You paid one, got some papers, they will accept new conditions after a certain period of time. People’s most important task now is not so much to pay off the military commissar directly, but to leave the country altogether, because they will be caught anyway.
Ukrainian media reported on May 20 that military commissions in the country had submitted requests to the police to search for about 95,000 evaders. Moreover, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky approved on May 17 an increase in fines for citizens who try to avoid serving in the AFU. He also cancelled the status of a person with limited serviceability in the army.
Oppression of Ukrainian Church
The sanctions in Ukraine had been known about long before the war began. The authorities imposed personal sanctions against 237 people involved in the organisation of the parliamentary election in Crimea and Donbas. According to the Ukrainian media, the measure affected people who were involved in organising “illegal elections.”
In 2023, Zelensky signed a decree imposing personal sanctions on 119 Russian and Ukrainian citizens. Even former captain of the Ukrainian national football team Anatoliy Tymoshchuk came under the restrictive measures. Those on the list would be stripped of all awards, banned from entering the country. Their accounts will also be blocked and the fulfilment of economic and financial obligations will be suspended.
The harassment also affected the clergy. In the city of Cherkasy, the metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was forced to walk through a portrait of Patriarch Kirill. His portrait was spread out in front of the entrance to the courthouse for Metropolitan Theodosius. The priest asked to remove the picture from the ground, but the police officers only laughed in response, Ukrainian media reported.
Recently, the Cherkasy court considered the case of changing the preventive measure for Metropolitan Theodosius, who is accused of “inciting religious hatred.” The cleric was left under overnight house arrest.
Freedom of speech
Ukrainian journalists also face persecution. Reporter Yuri Nikolov claimed prosecution of journalists investigating corruption, according to Politico.
I ran investigations for 15 years before the war, and it was always hard and risky. But I think it’s worse for journalists now.
Yuri Nikolov is the editor and co-founder of the anti-corruption investigative project Nashi Groshi (Our Money). Last year, he published several articles about alleged corruption in the Ukrainian army. He described defence procurement and grossly inflated prices for food and catering services for the country’s combat units.
At the time, he also found that suppliers were allowed to charge three times the average retail price of food products. The investigation sparked a public outcry and led to the resignations of the country’s deputy defence minister and former defence minister Oleksii Reznikov last year.
As long as Ukraine is going through a lot of turmoil, including corruption, human rights violations, demographic and financial crises, the EU is unlikely to agree to accept it. Most likely, this will become possible after recovery following the end of the war against Russia. However, this will also require more than just a few years.
