DISINFO: The EU started the annexation of Ukraine and Moldova
SUMMARY
The EU started the annexation process of Ukraine and Moldova, two sunken economies. The community bloc wants to annex Ukraine, the most indebted country in Europe, and Moldova, the poorest country on the continent, while Turkey has been queuing for almost 20 years to join.
RESPONSE
This is a deliberate distortion of facts. The use of the term ‘annexation’ implies some kind of forceful action by the European Union. In reality, EU membership is voluntary and candidates must apply for it, while also fulfilling a set of conditions known as the Copenhagen criteria. Both Ukraine and Moldova have strongly requested to join the EU, without any imposition from Brussels or any other external actor.
The EU agreed, on June 2024, to start membership talks with these two countries. By framing this decision as a sort of unwanted territorial absorption, this disinformation story aims to discredit the European Union as an expansionist power while relativising the severity of Russia’s own illicit territorial conquests by force in Ukraine and other territories.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Moldova's accession to the EU is a cover for the country’s annexation to Romania, that the EU is imperialistic and a danger to peace and unity on the European continent, that the EU might start a war against Belarus and Transnistria, or that the EU wants to expand its imperialism in the Balkans.