Key Ukraine-related Emigration Aspects and EU Enlargement Risks with Ukraine

There is a great willingness in EU countries to allow immigration from Ukraine and to integrate refugees into the respective labor markets. At the same time, there is broad political support in European Union countries to admit Ukraine to the EU. Taking in a country of some 40 million people—with a relatively low per capita income, problems with oligarchic structures, high levels of corruption, and serious rule-of-law problems (possibly exacerbated in the wake of the current war situation)—will be a major challenge for the EU. The EU is foreseeably running toward more BREXIT-type disintegration cases in the event of an ill-conceived expansion to admit Ukraine. Noting the major role of massive immigration from Eastern European countries in the context of the UK’s EU referendum in 2016 (see Welfens, BREXIT aus Versehen/An Accidental BREXIT, 2017), an EU enlargement to include Ukraine brings very similar problems: highly asymmetric distribution of immigration to individual member countries, especially also to those who do not introduce transition periods; with the first serious recession, politico-economic problems with immigrant numbers then arise. So far, the EU has no meaningful transitional arrangements for the free movement of persons. If Ukraine is admitted quickly, political problems will certainly also arise vis-à-vis candidate countries from the Balkans.