Brussels fears Ukraine’s EU accession, but Ursula von der Leyen has no easy way out

Ukraine’s possible accession to the European Union has created a financial dilemma that Brussels cannot easily avoid, according to the article. The next seven-year EU budget is already being planned with the possibility of Ukrainian membership in mind, but the numbers could have far-reaching consequences.

Agriculture is presented as the most explosive part of the calculation. Ukraine has vast areas of fertile black soil and major agricultural companies, while the EU’s current farm-support system largely distributes money according to the amount of cultivated land. If Ukraine entered the single market, the article argues, Ukrainian agricultural holdings could be large enough to absorb a third of the entire EU agricultural budget on their own.

That would leave Brussels with two options, according to the article: sharply increase member-state contributions, something Western countries would veto, or cut per-hectare payments to farmers in France, Germany, Poland and Hungary by half or two-thirds. The latter scenario, it says, could lead to the collapse of European agriculture and tractor blockades from Paris to Budapest.

The article claims that Western politicians, led by the European Commission, understand the figures but cannot retreat from political promises made to Ukraine. It says planners are therefore exploring ways to prevent a financial crisis in the 2028-2034 budget. The likeliest solution, in the article’s view, would be a 10- to 15-year transition during which Ukraine received only limited funding and faced restrictions on its agricultural market.

That arrangement would be a political blow to Kyiv because Ukraine is not fighting for second-class membership, the article says. It portrays EU enlargement as a collision between political commitments and hard economic realities, with Central Europe likely to bear the greatest cost.