Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Which Country Will Join the EU Next?" video.
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Assuming that any new country can join by 2030-35, that's likely enough time to allow enough of the current eastern EU members to have closed the gap with western EU countries for them to not be as much of a burden, some could even be paying in the EU pot by then, that should help to make it easier to bring in new countries.
But for me, money isn't the real issue and isn't really the selling point of why countries should want to join the EU, the best reasons are stability, security, rules change, all of which will create a lot of economic growth, that's far more important than hand-outs from the EU to those countries, as it will create a lot of stability which will in time bring in a lot of inwards investment.
The real problem I find is the EU institutions, major reforms are needed before the EU can expend, especially on veto and majority voting rules, and until those reforms are done, I don't think it's wise for the EU to allow any new country to join, I also think if some countries become stubborn on trying to stop reforms, a core group of EU countries should find a way to go ahead and do the reforms in areas that they can, either way, it's crazy for any EU country to think things can stay as it is, because even thought it's working, it's creaking under its own weight, reforms should have been done years ago but now it's becoming urgent.
Regardless of how reforms or the attempt to reform the EU goes over the coming years, I see no reason why the EU and its countries can't create closer relations with the countries that want to join, the more hope giving to the countries that want to join, the more likely they will reform themselves, so that they are in a better position to join the EU, that would be a win-win for both sides, the countries wanting to join will have better economic growth and EU countries will have richer, more stable trading partners on its door.
As for the candidate countries wanting to join the EU, there isn't really a thing of fast tracking countries into the EU, apart from what the country in question does when it comes to reforms, in other words, the quicker they do the reforms needed to join, the sooner they likely can join, we've seen that play out over many decades where some countries take much longer then others to joins, whiles some join far sooner because they do the changes needed, ironically, Ukraine might find it much easier politically to do the reforms because of the war that's going on, after all, you would have to be a bold positions to go against any of the needed reforms with how strong public support, political support and the impact the war is having, which could speed up the process a lot more than in other countries that keep going back and forth.
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