It is an important symbolic step to have full membership for Ukraine
"It is an important symbolic step to have full membership for Ukraine and not watered-down membership in these staged processes... It’s also important to signal to Russia that its long-term goal of establishing political control over Ukraine will become unachievable once Ukraine is part of the European Union."
Interview with Maria Popova
Professor Maria Popova is a distinguished scholar in the fields of comparative politics, judicial politics, and European integration, with a particular focus on Eastern Europe and the post-communist world. As an accomplished academic at McGill University, she has made significant contributions to the study of democratization, rule of law, and political institutions in the region. Her work, which spans topics such as judicial reform, corruption, and democratic backsliding, has been widely recognized for its depth and analytical rigor. Through her extensive research and numerous publications, Professor Popova has provided invaluable insights into the political transformations of countries like Ukraine, Russia, and Bulgaria, shedding light on the complex interplay between law and politics in both democracies and autocracies.
Beyond her academic work, Professor Popova is a highly respected voice in discussions on European integration and the challenges facing democracy in the region. As the Co-Director of the Jean Monnet Centre Montreal and a former Jean Monnet Chair, she plays a vital role in fostering scholarly and public debates in Canada on the EU’s evolving political landscape. Her expertise is frequently sought in policy circles, where she provides critical analysis of pressing issues such as Ukraine’s EU accession process, the rule of law crisis in Eastern Europe, and the broader geopolitical implications of European enlargement. With her ability to combine rigorous academic research with real-world political developments, Professor Popova has established herself as one of the leading experts in her field, shaping both scholarly discourse and policy discussions on the future of democracy and integration in Europe.
O. Kandyuk: Very broad question just to begin with: European integration was originally conceived as a project for peace and economic cooperation. What are the key challenges facing the EU today, particularly in the context of war and enlargement?
M. Popova: That's a really good broad question because there are so many challenges that the first decision is which one is the most important. I think the most important challenge right now is the need to restore security in Europe by defeating Russia in Ukraine. It looms large over all the other challenges to deepening integration within the Union and enlarging the Union. We need more clarity about how to continue the integration process, given that Russia keeps attacking and could widen the attack and is interfering in more countries through disinformation, and hybrid warfare methods. The process of enlargement and deepening integration in the EU needs to continue for the EU to remain a viable geopolitical grouping and a club of democracies.
O. Kandyuk: Well, so in this context, how has the war in Ukraine reshaped the EU’s approach to enlargement, and what are the implications for Ukraine’s accession process?
M. Popova: I think it is clear that in these three years, the EU has taken the challenge of the war seriously. At the level of the EU institutions, there has been a quick change of gears from the previous general lack of enthusiasm about enlargement. We have seen now the supranational institutions have understood that there is a need for geopolitical enlargement right now.
There's a need to do everything possible to make sure that Ukraine and Moldova and possibly Georgia, which is under enormous pressure right now from a Russia-aligned government, can proceed. And that also involves rethinking, of course, about the Western Balkans and how to facilitate their accession. The supranational EU institutions have done a good job retooling.
Indeed, what we've seen is that Ukraine has moved very rapidly through the accession process. When in the spring of 2022, Ukraine applied officially, there was a lot of discussion about how this is going to be a dragged-out process.
I remember participating in discussions on this matter, where some argued that the process could take 20 to 30 years. At the time, my response was that the timeline is not predetermined; rather, it is contingent upon political will. The speed of progress depends entirely on the commitment of both the European Union and the Ukrainian government to advancing along this path.
I think it has been much quicker than people expected in the spring of 2022. Ukraine has already opened negotiations. In these three years, it's gone from applying, being recognized as a candidate, recommendations on what to do to open negotiations, and then opening negotiations.
And now we're even hearing that progress is good and things are moving along faster than expected. I think that is to the credit, both of the European Commission and of course also the Ukrainian leadership and the Ukrainian government and parliament that are doing the work.
O. Kandyuk: What internal reforms does the EU itself need to implement in order to integrate new member states effectively and avoid institutional deadlock?
M. Popova: One of the main problems I think will be integrating Ukraine economically, because it is such a big country, especially in the area of agriculture, it's going to be difficult.
Internal reforms in the EU will be needed to figure out how exactly to negotiate among the member states. Reform of the agricultural subsidies program, because Ukraine has an agriculture that is based on large players, industrial agriculture, as opposed to the small farms that exist in other European countries. Now, obviously, agriculture was an issue that kept coming up with every enlargement. And at every step, it was described as potentially a very problematic issue.
This was also discussed in the case of Poland. Eventually reform happened and a way forward was figured out.
That work will need to be done in the Ukrainian case as well. In terms of broader internal reforms, one thing to think about is, of course, a topic that comes up in European Union studies a lot – the extension of qualified majority voting versus unanimity. And this is something that will have to come up again when it comes to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and enlargement.
But I think it's not clear at this stage in what direction that debate would go. One of the challenges to enlargement right now is Hungary which is trying to put the brakes on a lot of these processes. Thus far, Hungary has been addressed in an ad hoc manner, primarily through peer pressure and discreet diplomatic efforts. These measures have effectively signalled that Hungary will not be able to obstruct the process indefinitely and will ultimately have to step aside, allowing it to move forward.
But it remains to be seen how long this strategy can be workable and also whether there might be some changes in government across the EU that might lead to more countries taking Hungary's position. It really depends on how effectively the EU will communicate to Hungary that this disruption will not be tolerated. It would be a lesson also to other potential disruptors of the process.
O. Kandyuk: Considering the current challenges within the EU itself, does the rise of populism and Euroscepticism in member states affect the prospects for further enlargement, particularly in Ukraine’s case? What strategy would you recommend for Ukraine to overcome resistance from certain EU members to its full membership?
M. Popova: I think the danger is that the longer the war continues, the more it's going to have repercussions for European democracies. The rise of populist and Eurosceptic actors, such as the recent electoral gains of the AfD in Germany, could significantly alter Europe's political landscape. Should a major political shift occur—such as a potential victory for Marine Le Pen in France—Europe may find itself in a fundamentally different position than it is today.
It's really important now to have a strategy for all European democracies to combat the disinformation that is flooding from Russia-sympathetic domestic actors that exploit this issue for their domestic purposes, and actually sponsored Russian agents disrupting domestic affairs. The strategy to combat this must be multi-pronged, it has to be based on civil society organizations, educating the public about how to identify disinformation, something that Ukraine has a lot of experience in from 2014, and has been quite successful at, so there can be some exporting of Ukrainian know-how on this to Europe. Also a stern reaction to a lot of the instances of interference by Russia in domestic affairs is needed.
We saw in the fall what happened in Romania, with the Constitutional Court reacting, indeed taking a very bold step to prevent a candidate from potentially winning the presidency, given the suspicious circumstances through which he managed to win the first round.
This is, however, a double-edged sword, using the courts to weed out potentially dangerous candidates. It's a double-edged sword because it might have the effect of boosting their popularity, turning them into martyrs, and thus enabling them, in fact, to make a big difference.
This needle has to be threaded carefully. Domestic political actors committed to both the European project and democracy need to have a really clear-eyed strategy about how to combat these threats.
O. Kandyuk: Almost every expert I have spoken to has, in one way or another touched on the topic of staged or differentiated integration. What is your opinion on this? What would be the optimal scenario for Ukraine’s integration into the EU: gradual sectoral integration or full membership?
M. Popova: I think for the purposes of both satisfying the Ukrainian electorate's commitment to EU integration and to becoming a full part of Europe, it is an important symbolic step to have full membership and not watered-down membership in these staged processes. I think for the political legitimacy of the EU integration process within Ukraine as well, it's important to have this symbolic moment of accession exist as a motivator.
It's also important to have this moment as a way to signal to Russia that its long-term goal of establishing political control over Ukraine, whether through repeated invasions, through some sort of puppet regime installed one way or another, this ultimate goal will become unachievable once Ukraine is part of the European Union. That will be the end of this hope for Russia. That's why I think it's important to have this moment for geopolitical reasons and for domestic Ukrainian democracy reasons.
At the same time, I think, we do know that countries become members, but there are all sorts of instruments for continuing conditionality and Europeanization work to be spurred. There's the cooperation and verification mechanism that Bulgaria and Romania had for many years that could be also used effectively in Ukraine if it's needed in certain areas to maintain a steady pace of continued reform. It's also, of course, a fact that when countries join the EU, they don't join all the integration programs at the same time.
Schengen, which takes time and it has its own set of criteria, or joining the Eurozone that also doesn't need to happen right away. In a way, there will be staging, no doubt, but I think symbolically we really should be wary of watering down the moment of accession with some sort of halfway points. The EU integration process is really based on the idea that once you become a member, you're a member. I think it has to stay this way.
O. Kandyuk: You have mentioned three pillars of Ukraine’s long-term security. How do you assess the likelihood of their implementation given the current geopolitical conditions, including the new U.S. presidency and specific trends in certain EU countries?
M. Popova: It seems that NATO is under particular strain from the current US administration. It is almost becoming a moot point whether Ukraine will be allowed to join NATO or not, in the context in which one member of NATO and the most powerful one, the US, is threatening other members of NATO, Canada and Denmark/Greenland. Suddenly, the type of strong guarantee that was attractive to Ukraine in NATO membership may just not be there in this measure for any NATO member at this point.
That waters down the attractiveness of NATO membership for Ukraine as a strong guarantee. That said, I think the European Union may, as a result of this weakening of NATO, take important steps to become more of a security player and take more responsibility for European security, reducing reliance on the United States as a way for all of Europe to move forward. Ukraine can benefit from such a trend.
It is the idea of a coalition of the willing coming from Europe to send troops to Ukraine to provide a security guarantee if some sort of ceasefire is negotiated, that would be absolutely a step in the right direction. There should be more discussion of how this will be organized, when and who will participate. I think that would be a meaningful security guarantee going forward, given that NATO is wobbly right now.
O. Kandyuk: Let's speak a bit more about Ukraine. In your work on democratic backsliding, you emphasize the role of weak institutions. How can Ukraine avoid this trend, especially given the pressures of war and reconstruction? What are the risks that Ukraine, after integration, could face challenges similar to those observed in Poland and Hungary? Is there a viable mechanism within the EU to prevent democratic backsliding among new member states?
M. Popova: There are definitely risks. I think we are in a democratic backsliding moment across democracies, whether older or newer. I think Ukraine cannot be immune to these dangers. One of the main dangers in such backsliding processes is the executive taking control of the judiciary, as a way to weaponize the judiciary against opponents. Interestingly enough, Ukraine is in a way a bit more prepared than the average democracy for this problem.
It's more prepared because judicial reform has been, over the past 10 years, really the focus of pro-democracy civil society. As a result, Ukraine probably has a more developed than average set of civil society institutions that are going to monitor very closely what the executive does to the judiciary, will sound the alarm very early on and are capable of mobilizing civil society to protest. It's interesting to me as a scholar of judicial independence and law and politics in general, to see that the attacks on the judiciary that are happening in the U.S. right now are not provoking major protests and major social mobilization.
This issue of judicial independence is seen as too technical in the US. It's disconnected from what ordinary people generally think about. It's not a focus of civil society.
In Ukraine, on the other hand, it is not a technical issue. People know a lot about how the courts function. I think that puts Ukraine in a slightly better position to guard against such dramatic backsliding steps.
But given the track record of low trust in the Ukrainian judiciary, the judiciary is always vulnerable to attacks from the executive. That's something that will have to be on the radar if it's possible for Ukraine to return to elections and to full-fledged democracy without martial law. This will be something that society will have to watch for.
O. Kandyuk: Some of your research focuses on the influence of oligarchs on politics and the judicial system in Eastern Europe. What role do oligarchs play in shaping Ukraine’s course toward European integration? How can their influence be minimized while maintaining the country’s democratic track?
M. Popova: One of the things that we've heard in the last two, or three years is that in an ironic way, the war has had the effect of reducing the power of the oligarchs because some of their main locus of assets have simply been destroyed. And they've also had think about how to reorient their business so that European integration would be their goal and their interest.
I think there is some truth to that, that there is a somewhat salutatory effect coming from the fact that ties with Russia are more decisively broken than ever before. Russia as the source of the livelihood of these oligarchic networks is being sapped by the war. And I think EU conditionality will play a significant role in imposing some rules of the game so that the oligarchs gradually transform basically from state captors to state builders, to major business that is interested in strengthening the procedures of the state so the state can take advantage of the development and investment opportunities that are going to open up to Ukraine through EU membership.
This is the optimistic way of viewing this, but of course, it will be a tough road to navigate because actors who are used to taking rents from the state will resist getting weaned from this process. It will be a tricky process, and the EU and civil society on the ground in Ukraine should work together to try to manage this process.
O. Kandyuk: So speaking about the conditionality, in your work “The Limits of EU Conditionality”, you argue that EU leverage has its limits. What are the key constraints in Ukraine’s case, and how can they be addressed?
M. Popova: The main constraint, I think, in the Ukrainian case is that if there is a full embrace of the idea that Ukraine needs to be incorporated into the EU as a geopolitical measure to increase stability and to create a clear border and a secure border with Russia, this really reduces the strength of the stick that the EU would have on Ukraine if the government tries to cut corners on some of the rule of law reforms or democratic accountability reforms. It'll be harder to use a stick because the geopolitical imperative will continue to be there.
It becomes increasingly difficult to exclude Ukraine from the accession process on the grounds of crossing certain thresholds. While this dynamic may reduce the EU’s ability to impose strict conditionality and could create opportunities for non-compliance by the Ukrainian government, alternative mechanisms remain available. Rather than relying on the threat of freezing accession progress, the EU can exert influence by actively engaging with Ukrainian civil society. By providing explicit support to organizations that hold the government accountable, the EU can encourage reform and deter potential democratic backsliding. This approach aligns with the concept of "active leverage," as described by Milada Vachudova, wherein external actors support domestic political forces committed to advancing democratic governance and institutional reform and constraining a government that may want to pursue some autocratizing steps.
O. Kandyuk: In your work on anti-corruption efforts, you highlight the importance of independent anti-corruption agencies. How can Ukraine ensure the independence and effectiveness of institutions like NABU and SAPO in the face of political resistance?
M. Popova: It's very hard and what we've seen from the Eastern European cases is that the institutional structure of the way in which these agencies are set up is not decisive in what kind of success that they can achieve. What we've seen is that who is appointed is more important. Carefully selecting the individuals to staff these agencies is more important than the way the agencies are set up, because it is possible for compromised and co-opted individuals to turn even the best-equipped agency into a tool of corrupt interests as opposed to a constrainer of them. So that's one lesson to draw from the Eastern European EU members who have a long and mixed track record of trying to curb corruption.
The second lesson is that the more successful an anti-corruption agency becomes, the stronger the pushback will be. I think it is perhaps useful to think of this process as a longer-term process, to bide your time and pace yourself as an anti-corruption institution, rather than come out too strong with too many cases, constraining too many or pushing back against too many powerful interests, because these powerful interests will then band together and curtail the independence. The blowback against the anti-corruption institution will be serious and may be successful.
I think the Romanian case illustrates that when an agency becomes very powerful, the political establishment involved with corrupt networks will band together and push back very strongly. Then success is short-lived. I think the lesson to draw from there is that it is better to be strategic and to take corrupt networks on one at a time and bide your time. In the longer run, that may be a more successful strategy.
O. Kandyuk: The last question that I usually ask all my speakers is about scenarios, What do you see as the most likely 3 or 4 scenarios for Ukraine’s integration into the EU over the next decade?
M. Popova: I think it is possible that Ukraine will be a member of the EU in the next decade. I think the way in which the process is moving along is quite promising and that speaks to a shorter integration timeline.
The really big “elephant in the room” of such discussion will be in what territory Ukraine would be able to join the EU. It is much harder to have a realistic assessment because it depends on the US. It depends on how long Russia can maintain its war machine.
I would not dare a prediction there. I think in some territory, Ukraine will be a member of the EU sooner rather than later. I think this scenario is more likely than a scenario of stalled integration similar to Turkey or to Serbia.
I think that is less likely because there are both – the impetus on the part of the Ukrainian government, whichever government it really is, whether it is this one or another, the impetus is strong because the consensus that European integration is desirable for Ukraine is very wide. I do not see it breaking.
I think that will be the guarantee, the recipe for success, the strong and consistent push from Ukraine and its society. On the EU part, if the security issues are manageable, I think the EU also has an interest in integrating Ukraine in order to bring stability to the entire region. I think it is more likely than not that in some territory Ukraine will be an EU member in the next decade.