US, Germany remain reluctant to support quick Ukraine NATO accession

NATO and Ukraine are expected to sign off Kyiv’s reform to-do list for future NATO accession on Wednesday (29 November), despite divisions over the process and reluctance from the US and Germany.

“We will agree on recommendations for Ukraine’s priority reforms as we continue to support Kyiv on its path to NATO membership,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters ahead of the meeting on Monday (27 November). 

“Allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of NATO,” he added.

The move is meant to give Kyiv an impetus to reform the state of its armed forces and security-related domains and provide a checklist NATO members can track. The document will not be public.

However, NATO members still disagree on whether the reforms listed in the annual programme are conditions under which Ukraine could join NATO or if they are a tool to bring Kyiv closer to the military alliance, several NATO diplomats told Euractiv ahead of the talks.

At their Vilnius Summit in July, NATO leaders agreed “to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when allies agree and conditions are met” and billed the summit “success”. 

While some NATO members, such as Germany and the United States, did not want to completely exempt Ukraine from undergoing reforms before joining the alliance, they also did not want to impose the strict and time-consuming process of the Membership Action Plan (MAP), settling for Ukraine to fulfil an “adapted annual national programme” (ANP).

Foreign ministers will endorse the ANP drafted by Kyiv, which defines the reforms it sees as essential to be ready to enter NATO once the war ends along with NATO member recommendations.

Easier homework

The ANP gives a reform agenda to the Ukrainians so “they can start their homework,” one NATO diplomat said, echoing what others also told Euractiv.

The annual programme process is less strict than the MAP any aspirant member of NATO would have to follow, four NATO diplomats said. 

“We shortened Ukraine’s path to membership from a two-step process to a one-step process by removing the requirement for a Membership Action Plan for Ukraine, we have actually removed one of the phases,” Stoltenberg said.

Contrary to the previous reform plans, Ukraine’s ANP is much shorter and less detailed, with 10 pages instead of 300, listing areas of priorities rather than a checklist, which made it very difficult for Ukraine to show off its success, one person with knowledge of the discussions said.

That way, it will be easier to showcase achievements until NATO’s Washington Summit next summer.

Among the many reforms are to guarantee the civil control of armed forces, draft a national defence and security strategy, work on interoperability of the armed forces with those of NATO members, and anti-corruption reforms (amendments to the judiciary, assets declaration of politically exposed people).

The protection of minorities is also included in the reform’s plan, according to Euractiv’s information, alongside considerations for human rights and democracy, which Budapest raises regularly as a condition before building any closer link between NATO, the European Union, and Kyiv. 

Two divided camps 

In reality, the same divisions as during the Vilnius summit remain, three NATO diplomats told Euractiv ahead of the meeting as Germany and the United States are pushing for a conditions-driven process rather than politically-driven, two of them said.

Concretely, this means that the programme would guide the reforms, and when the conditions listed are met, a second diplomat said, there could be a discussion on membership. 

Other NATO members believe that the programme is not listing the conditions but is instead a “guide” or a “tool” to track progress and inform the leaders.

In the meantime, describing areas of reform generally leaves space for manoeuvre for NATO members to review progress without being tied to the strict assessment of the progress, but rather give a political opinion.

With fewer details to check also comes the risk that the reforms will never be enough and make it harder to green-light accession.

“At the end of the day, it remains a political decision,” a third NATO diplomat said, taking, for example, the delays in Turkey and Hungary greenlighting Sweden’s membership because of national concerns.

Another NATO diplomat said that even if the war ended tomorrow and Ukraine had fulfilled all the conditions listed in the plan, NATO members would still have to give their approval to extend an invitation, which could be an arduous process.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]

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