From Periphery to Centre: Ukraine’s European Union Candidacy in the Shadow of War

Abstract: The full-scale Russian invasion fundamentally changed the context of the Ukraine-EU relationship and moved Ukraine closer to its European partners, culminating with candidate status in June 2022. This move is addressed within this thesis by looking into how President Zelensky used his speeches to claim the role of Ukraine as a rightful EU candidate and how the EU responded to this role claim before acknowledging Ukraine as an EU candidate. The thesis applies a five-step analytical approach that combines elements from critical discourse analysis and interactionist role theory to capture the discourse created by Zelensky to claim this specific role and how the EU interacts with that claim and discourse. The thesis suggests that Zelensky uses various rhetorical instruments to create this discourse, which enable him to successfully claim the role of Ukraine as a rightful EU candidate. Whilst the EU utilises its existing enlargement discourse with focus on criteria and conditions when interacting with Ukraine’s application in public, traces can be seen of Zelensky’s discourse and argumentation. This reveals the strength of Zelensky’s role claim and discourse, but also how established the EU’s discourse on enlargement is. The thesis thus contributes to the existing literature on the Ukraine-EU relationship from an Ukrainian perspective, but also the greater literature on enlargement.