Between Membership and Non-Membership in the European Union

Having explicitly demonstrated its potential in stabilization and regulation, the European Union copes nowadays with followed consequences of its own attractiveness – a membership queue permanently increases in spite of announced “no more cakes” agenda. It comes therefore at no surprise that the need and, actually, inner pressure to explore the ways to affiliate membership aspiring and, in particular, neighboring countries beneath (thus, not far beyond) the level of a full-fledged membership in the European Union has recently impressively increased. A junior, partial or limited membership in the EU, as well as association plus and membership minus strategies are the modest examples of newly- made membership alternative “cakes”. In case of Ukraine, the question is not limited to “geographical” and “culturological” discussions on whether or not Ukraine is a part of EUrope. Rather, the question is whether Ukraine has a realistic chance of claiming membership in the EU in a foreseeable future, what real steps have been already made towards it, which actions are currently expected and what alternative there may be to the membership vs. exclusion dichotomy?