(*This opinion / analytical article was written by Ivan Dikov for The European Views website.)

Size and a desire to join set Ukraine apart from the rest of the world in a unique way as far as the European Union should be concerned.

Which is the most important “outside” country for the European Union at the present moment and for the foreseeable future?

It isn’t the United States of America. It’s not the Russian Federation. Nor is it China, nor is it Turkey. It’s not Egypt, or Libya, or Syria, or Algeria, or Tunisia, or Morocco. It’s not Iran. It’s not even Serbia, or Georgia.

This question is absolutely essential for the future of the European Union.

And its answer should be unequivocal.

It’s Ukraine.

The reason, quite simply put, is the following:

Ukraine is the largest country that has the realistic potential, the desire, and a wide range of prerequisites to become a member state of the European Union, and to become one of the several “big ones” at that.

Of course, that is a very long shot: Ukraine hasn’t even been recognized as an official EU candidate country yet, and it’s not even sure when it will be, or even that it ever will be.

However, out of those eligible (i.e. being geographically part of the continent of Europe), Ukraine is the largest country that has the potential to become a member state of the European Union, and whose population seemingly has the desire to do so, and, what’s ever more important, whose society wishes to change correspondingly in the process. And, presumably, EU integration pre-accession changes have always been for the better – as dozens of other countries from Western, Southern, Northern, and Eastern Europe already have. Even EU haters admit that.

Evidently, Ukraine doesn’t carry nearly as much international weight as the USA, Russia, China, or Turkey, or even Iran, or Egypt, or a bunch of other countries, when it comes to trade, diplomacy, military power, you name it.

However, as far as the EU is concerned, all of those factors are trumped by one simple factor: the realistic potential to become one of your own…

Read the rest of this article on The European Views website here

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