Finnish President Stubb proposed to expand the European Union to 40 countries

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has proposed increasing the number of EU member states from 27 to 40. This was reported on June 4 by CNBC.

"Wouldn't it be great if Canada became the 28th state of the European Union instead of the 51st state of the United States?" said the President of Finland.

According to him, Norway, Iceland, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia should be accepted into the community first of all. After that, Turkey's accession should be seriously considered. Stubb also called for Canada's inclusion in the EU.

The President also stressed that it is now necessary to think big, taking into account geography and create sufficiently flexible membership mechanisms. He added that the window of opportunity for EU enlargement is quite short.

There is no money, but you are holding on: Brussels postponed the transfer of €9.1 billion to Kiev

The European Commission referred to the "technical steps" not carried out by Ukraine

Stubb said on May 5 that Europe needed Ukraine to "contain" Russia. According to him, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are now supposedly the "largest and most modern" army.

On May 23, Reuters reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Germany's proposal to grant Kiev the status of an "associate member" of the European Union. He considers such a format of Ukraine's participation in the unification to be unfair, since such a status does not provide for a full-fledged right to vote within the European Union.