David Stulik: Hardly Any Quick Accession Solutions, but the West Will React Faster

David Stulik

Against the background of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of the secession of the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia and the successful offensive actions of the defenders of Ukraine at the front. Kyiv made two high-profile decisions almost simultaneously. Namely, it was about officially sending Ukraine’s application for NATO membership to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s approval of the NSDC’s decision on the impossibility of any negotiations with Vladimir Putin. Newssky has asked David Stulik, who is the senior political analyst at the European Center for Security Policy, to comment.

Are such steps correct, and is there hope for success?  

Yes. It was the right step to apply for membership in the EU and NATO. Although there are not many hopes and prospects for success in relation to NATO, as NATO itself is currently unready to expand and to invite Ukraine as a member.

Regarding the EU, the situation is somewhat different. This process is very long, and if Ukraine will fulfil all seven conditions outlined by the European Commission and the European Council on June 25 in their decisions, then of course there will be some progress. Ukraine will advance on this path. Instead, it will be very slow. We cannot hope for quick solutions. At the same time, such steps – submission of applications – push the EU and NATO to react faster, to realize what Ukrainians need.

In addition, it is important in view of public opinion in European countries, it is important what the societies in European countries think, and such steps draw attention to your problems.

How did the accession to NATO take place in Czechia, what was the most difficult, and how did you cope with it?

It is very difficult to compare the process of joining NATO for Ukraine and the Czech Republic, because then in the 1990s we had an incredibly wide window of opportunity.

Russia was weak, it left Central Europe, and it was busy with its own problems. And then no one protested our joining NATO. It is not true that Russia is saying now that they were against it even then. I’d even think about Russia joining NATO at the time.

How long did it take for the Czech Republic to accede to NATO?

Immediately after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, there was a national consensus on joining NATO and the EU. Immediately, our diplomacy, the government, the president, and the entire political class were united in this regard, from the first day they began to promote the Czech Republic to NATO.

We had our own attorney, Madeleine Albright, who was the US Secretary of State. She comes from the Czech Republic. And the personality of President Havel was very important. So, we had strong unanimous support for the West—all three, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland.

We carried out rapid reforms of our army, military industry, and armaments, where large budget funds went.

There was a common consensus, there was political will, and there were no international barriers like Russia or other countries. That’s why everything happened quickly.

The most difficult thing was funding. It was about re-equipment, rearmament with modern weapons. We still don’t meet the standard because there is huge money. We still have old military equipment on the military register.

NATO has a standard of 2 percent of GDP for defence. We’ve always had noticeable problems with that. We still do not implement it, because it is an incredible burden on the national budget, and, of course, it is better to direct the funds into social policy, and not into armaments. This is the biggest challenge for us until now.

David Stulík worked for 12 years as the Press and Information Officer at the EU Delegation in Kyiv, Ukraine

In Ukrainian

Maryna Kovalchuk, Newssky, contributed