The EU should declare Ukraine a candidate for membership

Editor’s note (June 17th 2022): Since this article was published France, Germany, Italy and the European Commission have said that Ukraine should be invited to start the process of accession to the EU.

What is the point of the European Union? In a nutshell, to spread peace and prosperity on the continent. That mission has seen its membership expand steadily from the six founders of its precursor in the 1950s to 27 countries today. But in recent years its growth has slowed. No new member has been admitted since Croatia in 2013 (and one has left). Now war has ignited on the eu’s borders—just the sort of horror its founders hoped to banish from the continent. To be true to the eu’s mission, to bolster an embattled democracy and to face down the sort of nationalist aggression to which the eu considers itself the antidote, the club’s leaders, who meet in Brussels next week, should formally declare Ukraine a candidate for membership.