NATO’s Secretary-General Stoltenberg with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy.
Credit: Sergei Chuzavkov/Shutterstock.com
The proposal by Poland and the Baltic states to create a roadmap for Ukraine’s accession to NATO has been opposed by the US, Germany and Hungary.
Hungary, Germany and the United States have opposed the proposals of Poland and the Baltic states to create a roadmap for Ukraine’s accession to NATO as soon as possible. This was reported on Thursday, April 6, on the website of the Financial Times, referring to diplomats.
According to the news outlet, all members of the alliance – whose number this week increased to 31 – agree that Ukraine’s accession to NATO is not a matter for the near future and can only be seriously discussed after the end of the ongoing conflict.
At the same time, several Eastern European countries are proposing to strengthen ties between NATO and Ukraine in the near future, to make more concrete statements in support of its entry into the organisation and to offer it a ‘political path’ to membership.
The position they have taken promises to complicate dialogue between members of the alliance on the eve of the July NATO summit in Vilnius, following which they will have to issue a joint statement. According to one of the interlocutors of the publication, ‘the path to Vilnius will be thorny’.
Another diplomat told the newspaper, “We have several weeks of intense negotiations ahead to try to bring our positions closer and formulate some kind of political outcome. But yes, there are significant differences on this issue now”.
According to Financial Times sources, Washington is suggesting that the allies focus on providing military, financial and humanitarian assistance to Kyiv for the time being. They should then discuss the practical issues in Vilnius, without being distracted by the future relationship between Ukraine and the alliance they added.
At the same time, as a step towards Kyiv, a Ukraine-NATO Council can be created said the US. This will allow the Ukrainian side to receive more detailed intelligence information and participate more actively in meetings of NATO countries.
In March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made it clear that his participation in the July summit would only make sense if the alliance made “some reciprocal steps forward” regarding Ukraine’s status.
On Wednesday 5, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said at a press conference in Brussels that NATO’s open door policy towards Ukraine has not changed. He said that the West is focused on the practical steps needed to ensure that Ukraine meets the standards of the alliance.
Blinken stressed that attention should now be focused: “on the coming weeks and months, especially given that Ukraine is preparing for a counteroffensive”. On the same day, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley, in an interview with Politico, said that Ukraine’s entry into NATO is not a top priority at the moment.
At the end of September 2022, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed an application to join NATO on an accelerated basis. Later, Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, said that Kyiv could not join NATO in the face of hostilities on Ukrainian territory, as reported by tass.ru.
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