Merz pitches EU membership referendum

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Ukraine may have to accept territorial losses in a future peace deal with Russia and put that choice to a referendum. (usnews.com) Speaking to students in Marsberg on April 27, Merz said President Volodymyr Zelensky would need a majority in a referendum for any such deal. He said that case would be easier to make if Ukrainians were offered a credible path into the European Union. (usnews.com) Merz framed the tradeoff in blunt terms: if parts of Ukraine were no longer under Kyiv’s control after a peace treaty, the government would need to show voters that it had “opened the way to Europe.” Reuters reported the remarks from the school event in North Rhine-Westphalia. (usnews.com) His comments matter because they tie two negotiations that are usually discussed separately: ending the war with Russia and Ukraine’s long bid to join the European Union. Merz has also insisted that Europe must be part of any eventual peace agreement with Moscow. (reutersconnect.com) They also cut against Kyiv’s preferred timetable. Merz said Zelensky’s idea of joining the bloc on January 1, 2027, would not work, and added that January 1, 2028, was not realistic either. (usnews.com) Instead, Merz floated interim steps, including observer roles for Ukraine in European Union institutions without full voting rights. He said those ideas had broad backing among leaders at last week’s summit in Cyprus, which Zelensky attended. (usnews.com) (euronews.com) Ukraine is already deep into the accession process, but it is not close to membership. The European Commission says Ukraine got candidate status in June 2022, accession negotiations were formally opened in June 2024, and the screening process was completed in September 2025. (ec.europa.eu 1) (ec.europa.eu 2) The next step is narrower and more technical than the politics around it suggest. The Commission says member states still have to agree to open negotiating chapters, grouped into six clusters, and that Ukraine has already met the conditions to open three of them. (ec.europa.eu) Merz’s own position mixes support with limits. On April 14, standing beside Zelensky in Berlin, he said Germany backed Ukraine’s entry into the European Union but added that full accession could not be achieved in the short term and would require more reform on corruption and rule of law. (reutersconnect.com) That leaves Merz arguing for Europe as both incentive and endpoint: not immediate membership, but a political guarantee strong enough to help Ukrainians accept a peace they might otherwise reject. (usnews.com) (reutersconnect.com)