A Fast-Track Membership for Ukraine?

Hello! Today is February 3rd, 2026, and here is your EU news summary for the week. Feel free to share this newsletter with friends and colleagues, and follow us on LinkedIn.

This week’s briefing is by Lukáš Macek, head of the Greater Europe Centre at the Jacques Delors Institute, which is dedicated to analysing EU enlargement. He is also director of Sciences Po’s European campus in Dijon.

Ukraine’s membership bid is unprecedented: never before has a country applied to join the European Union while under attack from a neighbouring power.

This dramatic context, with far‑reaching geopolitical implications for the Union, explains the equally exceptional speed of the initial stages of Ukraine’s accession process.

Could the next steps move just as fast? Is the EU on the verge of inventing a new accession model that would redefine the very notion of Member State?

When President Zelensky first floated the idea of a “fast track” in 2022, it sounded like wishful thinking. But speculation has been growing since the idea of membership as early as 2027 appeared in some draft peace‑plan scenarios for Ukraine.

Conditionality and Merit

The EU’s accession process, particularly since the enlargements to Central and Eastern Europe, is grounded in conditionality and merit, measured against the so‑called Copenhagen criteria.

A candidate’s ability to meet these benchmarks — democracy and the rule of law, a viable and competitive market economy, and adoption of the EU acquis — determines the pace of accession.

But everything also depends on whether all the Member States consider a new enlargement opportune and compatible with preserving the “momentum of European integration”.

The early steps are political signals with largely symbolic impact. Ukraine obtained candidate status in less than four months and the formal opening of accession talks in under two years. By comparison, the Western Balkan countries needed between 2 and 6 years, and between 3.5 and 18 years respectively, to clear these hurdles.

This speed is understandable given the wartime context. The process, however, becomes more demanding once negotiations are opened. While talks with Finland, already highly aligned with the EU, lasted only 14 months, they stretched to around five years for the Central and Eastern Europeans.

Adding at least one year for finalising and ratifying the accession treaty, if Ukraine were to follow their pace, its accession would take place, at best, in early 2030.

The Unprecedented Prospect of Fast-Track Accession

“Fast‑track” accession by 2027 would therefore mean admitting a country clearly not yet compliant with the Copenhagen criteria and granting it Member State status subject to numerous limitations.

While the Treaties do not formally provide for multiple membership statuses within the EU, practice has established a fairly variable geometry in Member States’ rights and obligations: the euro area, Schengen, and a range of opt‑outs.

Accession treaties can also amend the founding treaties, temporarily or permanently. It is therefore entirely conceivable, in Ukraine’s case, that the formal act of joining the EU would not mark the end but rather the beginning of a long process of alignment with EU law.

In other words, whereas transitional periods and derogations have so far been the exception, they could become the rule.

Yet even if such an approach is legally possible, is it realistic or desirable? Using the terms “accession” or “Member State” for a situation far removed from what those words have meant up to now would risk cementing the idea that some states have become “second‑class” members.

More seriously, it would mean sacrificing the logic of merit and conditionality — in other words, giving up what is most valuable about enlargement: its transformative nature. It would also make the EU’s structure and functioning even more complex.

It would raise questions for other candidates too. If this new approach were reserved solely for Ukraine, would such double standards not deal a fatal blow to the EU’s credibility? And in any case, could such an accession realistically secure the 27 required ratifications, especially in France, where it might trigger a referendum?

Gradual Accession: A More Credible Path?

Geopolitical imperatives and solidarity push the EU to respond to Ukraine’s European aspirations as quickly as possible. But rather than a fast‑track accession that would be largely artificial and structurally destabilising, gradual accession that offers a better way forward.

Full membership would remain a medium‑term prospect, subject to strict conditionality and rigorous compliance with the Copenhagen criteria. Upstream, however, each candidate country, according to its own merits, should gradually gain access to benefits in principle reserved for members, whether participation in institutions, integration into common policies, or access to EU funds — far beyond what has previously been offered to candidates.

And for the sake of clarity, rather than inventing a status that is a membership in name only, a new intermediate status should be created, granting — on a temporary basis — rights that are less than those of full members but significantly greater than those traditionally enjoyed by candidates.

MOTHER OF ALL DEALS • Negotiations on the EU–India free trade agreement finally wrapped up in New Delhi on 27 January 2026, after nearly two decades of stop‑and‑go talks. The deal has been hailed as the “mother of all deals”.

On the EU side, the Commission will submit a proposal to the Council for the signature and conclusion of the agreement. After Council adoption, the EU and India may sign the agreements. The agreement then requires the European Parliament’s consent and a Council decision on conclusion to enter into force. It will become applicable once India has also ratified it.

The agreement covers goods, services, investment and digital trade, with tariff cuts on roughly 96–99 percent of bilateral trade over transition periods up to seven years.

EU exporters gain major reductions on autos (from 110% to 10%, subject to an import quota of 250,000 vehicles), high-tariff agri‑food products such as wine (from 150% to 75% and eventually 20%), olive oil, and processed foods but also machinery, chemicals. India secures improved access for textiles, leather, engineering goods and key agricultural exports.

The agreement also opens India’s services market in finance, maritime transport, IT and professional services, and strengthens rules on intellectual property, standards and public procurement alongside a dedicated trade‑and‑sustainable‑development chapter.

Politically, the FTA underpins the EU’s Indo‑Pacific strategy and India’s diversification away from China‑centred supply chains. Analysis by the Kiel Institute shows that Indian exports to the EU would rise by 41% while EU exports to India would rise by 61%.

“The turmoil caused by the Trump administration’s tariff policies and China’s unfair trade practices have clearly sharpened minds, increased flexibility, and accelerated both sides’ push to come to a deal after years of stalled negotiations”, said Jörn Fleck, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

The agreement lands just as the EU is still wrestling with the political fallout of its deal with Mercosur following the European Parliament’s vote to refer the deal to the Court of Justice of the EU — effectively suspending the ratification process until the Court rules. Getting big trade agreements through the European Parliament has become a high‑wire act.

BUY EUROPEAN • Internal market commissioner Stéphane Séjourné has teamed up with 1,141 business leaders (none in the automobile sector, full list here) to push a “Buy European” turn in EU public spending.

Their joint op-ed, published simultaneously in major European newspapers, calls for a clear, assumed preference for EU-based production every time public money is spent, from state aid to procurement and even FDI.

Framed as the political follow‑up to the Draghi competitiveness report, it’s both a response to US and Chinese industrial power plays and a test of how far the next EU mandate will go on economic sovereignty

DRAGHI • In a speech delivered in Leuven (Belgium) on February 1, Mario Draghi held that Europe faces an era of geopolitical “power politics” in which fragmented nation‑state responses leave the EU vulnerable to being “picked apart” by larger powers such as the US and China.

He called for a “genuine federation” that can move faster and deeper on economic integration, defence and industrial policy, even if all Member States are not ready to follow.

Building on his 2024 competitiveness report, he urged massive common investment, a stronger single market and more strategic use of trade, technology and security tools to restore Europe’s economic weight and global influence.

IRAN • On 29 January, the Council added 15 Iranian officials and 6 entities to the EU sanctions list for the regime’s violent repression of protesters and support to Russia, subjecting them to asset freezes, EU travel bans and a ban on making funds or economic resources available to them.

The individuals sanctioned include Iran’s minister of the interior, prosecutor general and a number of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders and high-ranking police officers.

• In a Bruegel policy brief, Anne Bucher and Elizabeth Golberg diagnose persistent weaknesses in the European Union’s better-regulation framework and propose reforms to make EU policymaking more coherent and streamlined.
• As debates over the green transition roil politics across Europe, Lukas Slothuus offers on the LSE EUROPP Blog an analysis of how Denmark’s backlash against large solar parks is reshaping the country’s climate politics.