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In particular, it was hard for Georgian, Ukrainian and Moldovan
officials to find EU support for a wording written in any joint document
which would make even an indirect reference to the European
perspective of the aspirant countries. Article 49 of the Treaty on the EU
is one of such possible references which never received the support of
Union officials until 2022. It looked even sadder that the EU shied away
from even “welcoming the European aspirations” of these countries
in joint documents but instead just “acknowledged” their European
ambitions.
To this end, the EU could offer these states at least a bit more than
just the “acknowledgement” of their European aspirations and the less
than “clear perspective of EU membership.” Yet, the EU was not ready
to create a so-called “constructive ambiguity” in support of the pro-
European feelings in the aspirant countries.
Such a “constructive ambiguity” could be achieved through
wording such as: “Opening the EU membership perspective for Georgia,
Ukraine and Moldova is conditional on their progress in democratic
governance as well as economic and social reforms” or that “Article 49
can be applied towards Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova once these states
demonstrate sustainable democratic and economic development.” It
would not be difficult to find many other similar wordings, too. However,
until 2022 the EU categorically opposed to introducing any kind of
“constructive ambiguity” with regards to the membership perspectives
of these states.
Based on the above-mentioned we may conclude that there were
neither political nor legal preconditions for the current EU enlargement
towards Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova, which was launched in 2022.

From a legal perspective, none of the three states had the status
of the Potential Candidate, i.e. European Perspective, EU potential
candidacy has always been a precondition for activating the Article 49
and launching an accession to the EU.
From a political perspective, clearly, the EU’s foreign policy agenda
did not include any topic which would relate to the further enlargement