Ukraine in EU Path Threatened by Elections in Poland and Slovakia

Nationalism is on the march ahead of the Polish and Slovak elections, potentially ending unconditional support for Ukraine. Just as Ukraine’s EU membership hopes get traction among the traditional sceptics of enlargement, Kyiv’s ambitions run into trouble among CEE friends – write editors of the Visegrad Insight.

Parliamentary elections in Poland and Slovakia this autumn are threatening to weaken the pro-Ukrainian unity of European Union members and complicate Kyiv’s path towards membership in the bloc. If the nationalist agenda triumphs, Ukraine’s “best friends forever” are likely to demand new bilateral concessions that will chill EU membership ambitions.

If new governments emerge on the back of such an electoral agenda, the petty nationalist phobias will frame and set conditions for CEE countries’ future support of Ukraine’s integration into the EU. In other words, North Macedonia’s embittered pathway towards EU membership – hamstrung by Bulgaria’s conditions based on bilateral identity politics – would be a template for the other nationalists in CEE to exploit Ukraine’s membership bid, with much higher stakes for the West.

In Slovakia – a nation of 5.5 million – this comes as little surprise given the openly anti-Ukrainian stance of some of the leading contenders in the 30 September vote; however, the Polish government’s increasingly antagonistic approach to its beleaguered neighbour shows that much of its earlier posturing as Kyiv’s friend-in-chief in Europe should not be taken at face value.