European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos is pushing for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union – despite a number of corruption scandals that have hit the country.
On November 12, Ukrainian Justice Minister German Galushchenko was suspended following large-scale raids by the country’s anti-corruption agency targeting the energy sector.
In October, Volodymyr Kudrytsky, the former head of Ukraine’s State-run electricity grid, was arrested on alleged embezzlement charges.
Kos, speaking in Warsaw yesterday at the EU-Ukraine Investment Conference, emphasised that the bloc’s enlargement can help address governance and corruption challenges.
“We need to push back against forces that aim to destabilise our continent. We need to clean up our continent of autocracies,” she said.
How can we effectively do this if geographic gaps continue to exist on our continent? Closing these gaps means making Europe stable, more independent, more secure and freer.
“Our enlargement policy is a powerful tool to fill the gaps in freedom. It expands the rule of law, democratic institutions, and free media,” she added.
Koss said expanding the EU eastward is “nothing to be afraid of”, as “it is the return to European normality”.
According to her, reforms undertaken in Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova are “driving change”.
The European Commission on November 4 published a 111-page European report assessing Ukraine’s progress on reforms. In it, the EC highlighted “concerns” regarding “independent and robust anti-corruption framework”.
In her speech, Kos also acknowledged that corruption or weak institutions are a concern but stressed that “honest discussion” is needed to prevent backsliding of future members.
Her words echoed a previous interview she did on the Polish broadcasting channel TVP on November 7. During that, she pointed out that current EU member states sometimes struggle to uphold the basic democratic principles a laid out in Article 2 of the EU Treaty.
Nevertheless, by 2027, Kos stated, Ukraine and Moldova are expected to be fully integrated into the EU’s energy market.
