EU cannot fast-track Ukraine membership due to corruption and size, diplomat says

The EU cannot fast-track Ukraine’s membership bid as allowing such a large and corrupt country into the bloc would make a “mockery of the entire project,” a senior diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Financial Times for an article published on Friday.

Kiev was granted EU candidate status soon after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, and Vladimir Zelensky has increasingly demanded that that the process be fast-tracked, potentially allowing Ukraine to join as early as 2027. However, multiple EU leaders have ruled out so fast an accession, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggesting an associate membership for Ukraine – an idea Zelensky has rejected.

“You can’t bring a country of 40 million people that’s at 104 on the global corruption list into the EU. It would make a mockery of the entire project,” the FT cited the EU diplomat as saying.

Ukraine’s “biggest impact on the enlargement debate, by far, is making it clear just how unprepared we are for new members,” the FT cited the diplomat as saying.

EU admission criteria require candidates to have stable institutions that guarantee democracy, rule of law, and measures against corruption and organized crime. Ukraine ranked 104th out of 182 countries in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index, and even some of its staunchest backers in the EU say that the country would need years to meet the bloc’s accession requirements.

Ukraine has seen several major corruption scandals of late. Last November, the country's Western-backed national anti-graft agencies charged Zelensky’s longtime business associate Timur Mindich with embezzling around $100 million from the country’s nuclear operator Energoatom. Two ministers and the Ukrainian leader’s chief of staff were ousted in the aftermath.

Last month, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) accused several senior officials in Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry of large-scale fraud, embezzlement and money laundering aimed at stealing foreign money.

“Corruption in Ukraine has become a byword. It permeates the entire Ukrainian power structure, including Zelensky’s inner circle and Zelensky himself,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier this year.

Meanwhile, ordinary Ukrainians are dying in “meat-grinder assaults” for “Mindich’s gold-plated toilets” and “luxury jewelry” for Zelensky’s wife Olena, she said.