Germany's Merz pitches 'associate' EU membership for Ukraine

The headline sits on the page. “Associate membership.” “Interim membership.” “Full membership.” A family of words, but what is the game? They are arranging the chairs, but I ask: what is the grammar of this chair? They speak of a thing, a status called “membership,” and then they qualify it. Associate. Interim. Full. As if “membership” were a substance that could be diluted or concentrated, like water and wine. But what is the use? What do we do when we say a country is a “member”? We look at treaties, at laws, at voting procedures, at the movement of goods. That is the practice. That is the language-game, played within a form of life.

Now they propose a new move: all the practices of one game, but without the central piece. The king that cannot move. “Membership without voting rights.” Does this clarify or confuse? It is like saying “a game of chess where the king cannot be checked.” You have all the pieces, the board, the turns - but the point, the practice that gives the word “chess” its life, is removed. What remains is a different game, with a superficial resemblance. They call it “chess” to ease the transition, but the grammar has shifted. The word is kept for its comfort, while its use is hollowed out.

They want to say “Ukraine is a member” and also “Ukraine is not a member.” The grammatical contradiction is smoothed over with an adjective: “associate.” The fly is now in the bottle. The solution is not to find the correct definition of “associate membership,” but to look at what is actually being proposed. What specific practices change? Which doors open, which remain locked? Describe that. The anxiety comes from treating “membership” as a single, essential thing one either has or lacks, rather than as a complicated weave of practices and agreements. There is no essence of membership to be diluted. There are only specific rights and obligations. List them, and the philosophical problem - “What is associate membership?” - evaporates. The political difficulty remains, of course. But at least it will be a real difficulty, not a ghost conjured by grammar.

Dash it all, one reads the morning papers, one sips one’s tea, and one finds oneself confronted with the most extraordinary convolutions of human ingenuity, all in the name of what one presumes is progress. This notion of “associate” membership, a sort of half-in, half-out arrangement for Ukraine, strikes one as precisely the sort of splendidly intricate knot that only the most dedicated committee could devise. It reminds me, rather, of the time young Bingo Little, in a fit of romantic ardour, attempted to be both engaged to the formidable Honoria Glossop and simultaneously cultivate the affections of the waitress at the Drones, all without either party becoming entirely aware of the other’s existence. A delicate balancing act, to be sure, and one fraught with the potential for sudden, explosive revelations.

One can almost picture the chaps in Brussels, poring over their blueprints, attempting to construct a sort of annex to the main edifice, complete with all the trimmings but lacking, as it were, the master bedroom key. “Full membership eventually,” they say, as if one might eventually be permitted to sit at the captain’s table after a suitable period of polishing the brass on the lower decks. One trusts that some chap, perhaps a rather quiet sort in the corner with an impeccably pressed waistcoat, will eventually suggest the simpler, more direct route, much as Jeeves, with a mere clearing of the throat, can unravel a week’s worth of Bertie’s well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous schemes. One lives in hope, of course, that the spirit of common sense, like a well-trained retriever, will eventually fetch the ball from the thicket of diplomatic niceties. Until then, one must simply observe the spectacle with a certain detached amusement, confident that the sun will, eventually, shine through the clouds of bureaucratic complexity.

Another education in subordination, dressed as generosity. They propose to teach Ukraine the forms of membership while withholding its substance - a curriculum designed to produce dependency and then condemn it as immaturity. They offer the title without the authority, the seat without the vote, the chain gilded so it might be mistaken for a gift.

What is this if not the oldest lesson taught to those deemed unready for self-rule? You may sit at the table, but you may not speak. You may learn the rules, but you may not make them. And when you protest this half-measure, they will call you ungrateful - or worse, unstable. The very restlessness this system produces will be used to justify its continuation.

If Ukraine is worthy of association, it is worthy of full membership. If it is not yet ready, then the task is to make it ready - not to invent a lesser category that preserves the power of those who judge. There is no third option that is not a confession of bad faith. Either reason is universal, and all nations capable of it deserve equal standing, or we admit that this union is not built on reason at all, but on the old arithmetic of dominance.

I see the ornament trap laid again. They will call it pragmatism. I call it what it is: a refusal to educate equals, and therefore a refusal to see them as equals at all.