Vilnius gives Ukraine a shorter road to NATO and no date of arrival

The thirty-one Allies met in Vilnius on 11 and 12 July. Their communiqué says that Ukraine's path to full Euro-Atlantic integration "has moved beyond the need for the Membership Action Plan"[1]. The same paragraph says that the Allies will be in a position to extend an invitation "when Allies agree and conditions are met"[1]. Those two sentences carry the whole summit. The first removes a procedural stage that every applicant since 1999 has passed. The second keeps the decision in the hands of the Allies and gives Ukraine no date. We think that the first sentence matters more than the Ukrainian reaction suggests, and that the second sentence matters more than NATO's own communication suggests.

What the communiqué changed

The Bucharest Declaration of 3 April 2008 already said that Ukraine and Georgia "will become members of NATO"[2]. Fifteen years later, that promise has produced no Membership Action Plan and no invitation. The Vilnius text therefore starts from a credibility deficit. It answers that deficit with three decisions. The Allies have abolished the Membership Action Plan stage for Ukraine, which the Secretary General describes as turning a two-step process into a one-step process[3]. They have established the NATO-Ukraine Council, "a new joint body where Allies and Ukraine sit as equal members"[1]. They have turned the Comprehensive Assistance Package into a multi-year programme[1]. The Council met for the first time on 12 July with President Zelensky at the table[8].

The communiqué also contains decisions that do not concern Ukraine directly and that will shape the Alliance Ukraine would join. The Allies now make "an enduring commitment" to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence each year and they state that expenditure beyond 2% will be needed in many cases[1]. The 2014 pledge treated 2% as a target. The 2023 pledge treats it as a minimum. NATO's own estimates say that at least eleven Allies will meet the 2% level in 2023, against seven in 2022[10]. The Allies have also approved a new generation of regional defence plans and a Force Model that aims at 300,000 troops ready to deploy within thirty days [1, 9]. On 10 July, President Erdoğan agreed to forward Sweden's accession protocol to the Grand National Assembly as soon as possible[6]. The communiqué says that the Allies look forward to welcoming Sweden as a full member[1].

Why the wording disappointed Kyiv

President Zelensky reacted on 11 July, before the text was published, to leaks of its content. He wrote that it was "unprecedented and absurd" that no time frame was set for the invitation or for membership[3]. He added that uncertainty is weakness[3]. President Biden had said on 9 July that he did not think Ukraine was ready for membership and that calling a vote now would be premature[4]. He proposed, for the duration of the war, security of the kind the United States provides for Israel[4]. The Baltic States and Poland argued for a clearer path[3]. The communiqué is the compromise between those positions and it reads like one.

The conditions language is the real problem. The communiqué mentions "additional democratic and security sector reforms" as the subject of the conditions[1]. It does not list them and it does not say who will assess them. The Secretary General says that accession has always been conditions-based and never timeline-based[7]. That is also a way of saying that the Allies retain a veto at a date of their choosing. For Ukraine, which is fighting a war of national survival, an open-ended condition is a political cost. For the Allies, which do not want Article 5 to apply to an active front, it is the price of consensus. Both readings are correct and the communiqué does not reconcile them.

Kyiv changed tone on 12 July. President Zelensky said that the summit had removed "any doubts and ambiguities" about whether Ukraine will be in NATO and that his delegation was bringing home a security victory[8]. The reason for the change lies outside the communiqué. The G7 leaders adopted in Vilnius a Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine on 12 July[5]. Each G7 member will negotiate bilateral, long-term security commitments with Ukraine, covering military equipment, training, intelligence sharing, economic support and sanctions[5]. In the event of a future Russian armed attack, the signatories intend to consult Ukraine immediately and to provide prompt, sustained military and economic assistance[5]. The European Council had already said on 29 and 30 June that the Union stands ready to contribute, together with partners, to future security commitments to Ukraine[11]. The Vilnius architecture is therefore a bridge: bilateral commitments now, membership later.

What this means for a generation born after 1992

Our generation grew up with the Bucharest promise as a settled fact and watched it go unfulfilled through 2008, 2014 and 2022. We read the Vilnius text with that record in mind. A bridge is useful only if it leads somewhere, and the G7 declaration states expressly that it does not replace membership[5]. The risk for Europeans of our age is that the bilateral commitments become permanent and that the membership question is deferred from summit to summit. The British Defence Secretary's remark that the West is "not Amazon" shows that patience in some capitals is finite[8]. Ukraine's patience is finite too.

We make four recommendations. First, the Allies should publish, before the Washington summit of 2024, the list of reforms that the "conditions" paragraph refers to, so that Ukraine and the public can measure progress. Second, the Member States of the Union that sign bilateral commitments under the G7 declaration should coordinate them through the European Council, so that twenty-seven separate texts do not produce twenty-seven separate standards. Third, the NATO-Ukraine Council should meet at ministerial level on a fixed calendar and publish a short record after each meeting, because an equal seat without a public trace is a weak seat. Fourth, the Allies that spend less than 2% of GDP should present national plans with dates, since a minimum that twenty Allies miss is a minimum in name only[9].