German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for six new member states to be added to the European Union, including Ukraine.
The comments were made during a visit to the Czech Republic this week, in which the German leader said that Russia’s war in Ukraine required a “European answer.”
According to France24, Scholz said he was “committed” to seeing as many as 9 new member states added to the European Union, all of them on Russia’s doorstep.
These include the six nations of the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Serbia. He also reportedly mentioned Moldova, Georgia and, most significantly, Ukraine.
Notably for Ireland, Albania and Georgia are already significant sources of illegal immigration to Ireland using fake documentation, as confirmed by Leo Varadkar during his tenure as Taoiseach.
Leo Varadkar says Georgia and Albania driving rise in asylum-seeker numbers https://t.co/LYnCZWaQrd
— Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) November 3, 2019
If given EU member-state status, such countries would be given the right to free travel within the Union.
“Their EU accession is in our interest,” said Germany’s Scholz.
However, to make this possible, he added that the ability of each member state to veto certain policies would have to be removed so as not to slow down decision making, and replaced with a “majority voting” system where countries could be outvoted on key issues like sanctions policy.
Scholz also called for European armed forces and defence budgets to undergo a “coordinated growth.”
Currently negotiations are ongoing for many of the aforementioned countries to be considered either as EU member states or candidates.
However, this may risk antagonising Moscow further, as some analysts claim that the perceived risk of Ukraine joining a Western alliance like NATO was what prompted Russia’s invasion in the first place.