Forty European countries and the EU deliberate on their future

This emerges from a calculation by the Financial Times on the financial consequences of admitting new EU member states. An informal summit of forty European prime ministers and presidents on this topic will be held this weekend in Granada, Spain.

Earlier this year, Brussels promised Ukraine that a decision on EU membership would be made in December. Eight other European countries (Moldova, Georgia, and the six Balkan countries) have been waiting for admission for several years because the EU first needed to sort out its own affairs. Due to the Russian war advancing westward, this can no longer wait.

According to current EU rules, Ukraine will receive €96.5 billion under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) during the first seven years after admission, plus another approximately €90 billion from other EU funds such as the Cohesion Funds.

Estimates by the Financial Times suggest that with the arrival of nine newcomers, the current member states Czechia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Cyprus, and Malta will no longer qualify for such financing.

Drafting a new European agricultural policy (for the period 2025–2027) will be a task for the new European Commission, which will take office after the elections in June 2024.

The previous major expansion of the EU took place after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1993, most Eastern European countries were given a prospect of admission, and in 2004 ten new member states actually joined: Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, complemented by Malta and Cyprus. Bulgaria and Romania followed in 2007.