Road to NATO without Hungary’s Veto: Ukraine’s Reform Plan Agreed with Alliance

NATO’s thinking has developed to the point where it can at least partially correct the mistake it made at the Vilnius Summit in July.

Under pressure from the US and Germany, the Alliance not only refused to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join, but also imposed a new condition: Ukraine must meet the requirements of an Annual National Programme (ANP).

This threatened to turn Ukraine’s path to membership into a process that would never end. The ANP in its previous form was an absolutely insurmountable document several hundred pages long. Its implementation could only be suspended, not completed.

That was why European Pravda explained back then that the main priority for both Ukraine and its friends in the Alliance had to be changing NATO’s attitude towards this requirement.

It looks as if this has been achieved.

In this article, we’ll discuss why NATO has not only removed one of the insurmountable obstacles for Ukraine but has also streamlined future membership talks, although the second hurdle – the cautious position taken by Biden and Scholz – remains unchanged.

We have analysed the document that Ukraine presented to the allies in Brussels.

In Vilnius, President Zelenskyy was persuaded to abandon his harsh rhetoric towards NATO due to its position on Ukraine. Although the problems associated with the Vilnius decision were clearly understood in Kyiv, Ukraine’s friends in the Alliance did not hide their disappointment with their own organisation’s decision.

In the first few days following the summit, Ukraine made efforts to convince its partners of their mistake and to remove or at least minimise the requirement for the Annual National Programme (ANP). The first of these tasks failed, as NATO responded that the summit’s decision was final and not up for discussion.

However, in the second task Ukraine was successful. European Pravda has a copy of the document officially presented to the Alliance by Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, which has received formal approval. The Adapted Annual National Programme describes the reform priorities that Ukraine has committed to implement for its future NATO membership. At nine pages long, the document sets out a feasible plan.

According to our sources, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had aimed for an even shorter document of around three pages.

The reform plan Ukraine must implement to demonstrate its readiness for membership has…