NICOSIA – Despite the warmth of the Mediterranean sunshine, a gathering of European leaders in Cyprus has delivered a cool assessment of any prospect of a quick or easy path to EU membership for Ukraine.
Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself has appeared to acknowledge the limits of how quickly or easily his besieged country can find a European home.
“It’s a long process, a very hard one,” António Costa, president of the European Council, said after the EU leaders’ two-day summit, recalling his native Portugal’s nine-year accession path. “We cannot fix artificial moments, three months or ten years.”
His remarks reflect a broader mood shift among EU capitals. While Brussels has in recent months explored more flexible approaches, including a concept informally described as “reverse enlargement”, which would allow earlier political integration, there remains little appetite among leaders to depart from the EU’s established, merit-based framework.
