NATO agrees to accelerate Ukraine's membership action plan

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (left) and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda at a press conference ahead of the NATO summit in Vilnius Photo: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

NATO members have agreed to speed up Ukraine's path to membership by allowing it to skip the Membership Action Plan normally required of potential allies, Ukrainian Foreign Minister said.

Dmytro Kuleba announced. agreement on the eve of this week's NATO leaders' summit in Vilnius.

“After intense negotiations, NATO allies have reached a consensus to exclude the MAP from Ukraine's membership path. I welcome this long-awaited decision, which shortens our path to NATO. This is also the best moment to bring clarity to the issue of inviting Ukraine to become a member,” he wrote on Twitter.

The decision follows weeks of high-level diplomacy, during which Kuleba and Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, personally visit allied governments to lobby for support for the idea.

Momentum has been building since last month's conference in London to rebuild Ukraine, when French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna signaled that Emmanuel Macron's government would drop initial opposition to the idea.

An unexpected step

An unexpected step united Paris. with a group of NATO allies including the UK, Poland and the Baltic states that have long lobbied for a show of commitment to Ukraine's future membership.

Mr Kuleba's statement indicates that the United States and Germany had previously distanced themselves from the idea, now also removed objections.

Ukrainian officials say they do not expect to join NATO until after the war with Russia is over, but demanded a «significant» step towards membership at the NATO leaders' summit in Vilnius this week as a sign of commitment.

Last month, Mr. Kuleba told the Telegraph that abandoning the membership action plan was Ukraine's «minimum» requirement.

But there remains strong disagreement over whether Ukraine should ever join the alliance.< /p> p>

Joe Biden said Sunday that he does not believe Ukraine is «ready for NATO membership» and that there is no consensus within the alliance «as to whether Ukraine should be brought into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the midst of war.» war.”

Ukraine should “meet the same standards.”

Last month, he said he was “not going to make it easy” for Ukraine to join NATO “because they have to meet the same standards.” .

MAP is an open program of political and military reforms designed to bring potential NATO members into line with alliance standards. This can take years, and membership is not guaranteed.

Ukraine was first offered possible NATO membership in 2008, but the MAP was never granted due to concerns of some allies about alienating Russia.

< p>North Macedonia, which started its membership action plan in 1999, eventually joined NATO in March 2020.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, the only country currently on the path of action by membership, was invited to join the plan in 2010 but was only allowed to submit its first annual report in 2018.