NATO agrees to invite Ukraine when it meets security conditions

He proposes a simpler accession but recognizes that while the war lasts, this is not the time to integrate Kiev

VILNIUS, 11 (from the special envoy of EUROPA PRESS, Víctor Tuda)

NATO leaders have agreed on Tuesday to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance when it meets security conditions and completes democratic reforms and in its Defense sector, according to the statement from the Vilnius summit, Lithuania, with which they send a signal to Ukraine to strengthen its Euro-Atlantic perspective.

"The alliance will support Ukraine in carrying out these reforms on its path to future membership. We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met," he said. picked up the final declaration of the summit with which it goes beyond the declaration of Bucharest 15 years ago when the allies pointed to Ukraine as a future member of NATO.

Ukraine's accession thus becomes explicit in the ideology of the Atlantic alliance which, in any case, recalls that any candidate must be in a position to contribute to Euro-Atlantic security, as indicated in article 10 of its treaty.

At a press conference after the first day of the Vilnius Summit, the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, explained that NATO will take into account the fight against corruption and the modernization of the Defense forces in Ukraine, to conclude that besides, while there is a war, this is not the time to integrate Kiev.

"There is another dimension and that is that there is a large-scale war in Ukraine and all the allies agree that while there is a war, this is not the time to make Ukraine a member of the alliance," he acknowledged.

In any case, the former Norwegian prime minister has assessed that the declaration is a "strong and positive" signal that brings Kiev closer to the alliance and will mean, together with the multi-year package of several billion in military support and the inauguration of the Council NATO-Ukraine, establish the largest relationship of the military organization with a third country. "This is a clear package and a clear path for Ukraine to join NATO," he summed up.

In this way, the allied leaders reinforce the commitment to adhere to Ukraine with respect to the Bucharest summit, when in 2008 NATO already recognized kyiv's Euro-Atlantic perspective. In this sense, they have also agreed to withdraw the Membership Action Plan (MAP), the program with which the alliance advises candidate countries to help them adopt Western standards.

With this step, NATO slims down the bureaucracy for the eventual entry of kyiv into the military bloc, since its process will have only one step, the agreement of the allies. Stoltenberg has assessed that Ukraine has overcome this scenario since since 2008 it has approached NATO and demonstrated its capabilities, first waging a war against pro-Russian separatist forces in Donbas in 2014 and the large-scale Russian invasion since 2022.

In any case, the summit is not without controversy because the terms of the declaration have generated angry criticism from the Ukrainian President, Volodimir Zelensky, who on his way to Lithuania, where he will participate tomorrow in the first NATO-Ukraine Council, has branded as "absurd "Do not set a timetable for Ukraine's entry into NATO and put conditions on its entry.

The Allied Secretary General has evaded responding to Zelenski and has limited himself to pointing out that NATO sends a "positive" message for the path forward in accession and that the agreed package provides "practical" support for Ukraine which ultimately facilitates its incorporation into the organization.