ALMOST TWO THIRDS of people in Ireland are in favour of Ukraine joining the European Union, new polling shows.
The latest annual European Movement Ireland ‘Ireland and the EU’ poll, conducted by Red C Research, found that 65% of people are in favour of the country joining the EU, while 18% are not in favour and 17% don’t know.
The research also found that 62% of people in Ireland agree that the EU should continue to allow more countries to join as Member States.
The first part of the process for a country to become a member of the European Union is for them to officially apply for candidate status. Ukraine did this on 28 February, soon after the country was invaded by Russia.
On 7 March, the European Council voted to move the process forward, and ask the European Commission’s opinion (the next step). A decision from the European Commision (the executive branch of the EU) was given in June, recommending that Ukraine be granted candidate status.
It then fell back to the European Council to agree unanimously on granting Ukraine candidate status, which it did the following week, along with Moldova.
The European Parliament also adopted a resolution in June calling on the Council to give candidate status to Ukraine “without delay”.
The next step in the process is for the European Commission and Ukraine officials to draw up a negotiating framework. This will be a basis for conducting negotiations. Once agreed upon, it must then go back to the European Council for further approval before official negotiations can begin.
The negotiations are by far the hardest part of the candidacy process, and can take many years to complete, or stall altogether. The last country to become a full member of the EU was Croatia, in 2013. It took eight years for Croatia to go from candidate status to membership.
In broad terms, candidate countries must meet three conditions before they can become full members. These are known as the “Copenhagen criteria”, under which countries must:
Have stable and democratic institutions
Be a functioning market economy
Be willing and able to implement EU laws and regulations (knows as the “acquis”)
Once the commission is satisfied that a candidate country has met the requirements of a specific chapter, then the council has to unanimously decide to close it. Once all chapters are considered closed, then the council again must vote to approve accession. This is followed by a vote in the European Parliament, and then finally each EU member must ratify to bid.
Only after all this has been completed will a candidate country become a full member of the European Union.
So, in short, it is still a long road ahead before Ukraine can officially join the EU.
European security and Northern Ireland
The Red C Research poll shows that half of people believe the security situation in Europe means that Ireland should increase its defence spending, while 34% disagree and 16% don’t know.
“Interestingly, in our May instalment of this year’s poll, when we asked if Ireland should be part of increased EU defence and security co-operation, 59% agreed, up 5% from the year before,” Noelle O’Connell, CEO of European Movement Ireland, said.
“While in some European countries, like Finland and Sweden, there has been a transformation of national debate and policy change around defence and security due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Ireland public opinion remains mixed,” O’Connell said.
The poll has also found that some 57% of people support the Northern Ireland Protocol, while 35% don’t know and 8% disagree.
“What’s surprising is that more than a third of people polled say they don’t know whether they agree or not with the Northern Ireland Protocol,” O’Connell said.
“This indicates that there may be a knowledge deficit amongst the population. It suggests more work needs to be done to explain what the Protocol entails and the implications for people in Ireland,” she said.
The research found that just one third of people (31%) believe there will be a United Ireland in the EU within the next 10 years, while 43% disagree and 26% don’t know.
“Of any questions we have asked in our polling data, the responses we receive on this issue have remained constant for three years, which is noteworthy in itself,” O’Connell said.
With reporting by Cormac Fitzgerald
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