Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said what is rarely said out loud in Brussels. "Look at Ukraine. What it is being promised is a lie. Through the regular accession path, by meeting all the criteria, it will never be admitted. Everyone knows that," Rama said in an interview with Germany's "Welt am Sonntag".

Rama didn't say Ukraine shouldn't become a member. His message is different: the current negotiating model, with dozens of chapters, conditions and the possibility for any single member to block the whole process, is in his view not a realistic path for Kyiv. That is why he proposes that Ukraine take a seat at the European table right now, with full membership coming later, through a process based on concrete results.

Kohl didn't offer them 33 chapters

To make his point, Rama went back to 1989 and the then German chancellor Helmut Kohl. "When the wall fell, Kohl didn't tell the East Germans: now you have 33 negotiating chapters, and then we'll admit you. He said: we are all in the same boat," he said. According to him, it is precisely that ability - fast, strategic decisions in big geopolitical moments - that today's Europe lacks.

Hence his most radical proposal: abolishing the right of veto. Under the current rules, Rama warns, every new member gets the chance to block the whole Union with a veto, and enlargement makes decision-making even harder. "If Europe is to compete with China, the US and India, it is absurd that one member state can block everything," he said.

Sound familiar?

In Skopje this sentence needs no translation. For years Macedonia has watched its European negotiations held hostage by neighbours' vetoes, first the Greek one, then the Bulgarian. Rama now says the same about Ukraine, as the leader of a country that has itself been waiting in the same slow queue for years. Does Brussels listen more easily when the criticism comes from Tirana than when it came from Skopje?

The EU as the "Titanic"

Rama went even further and compared the Union to the "Titanic" sailing towards an iceberg. "The iceberg has already been identified by the great European Mario Draghi. The EU is less innovative and competitive than the other big players and lacks the capacity for bold and strategic decisions. If nothing changes, it will turn into the Titanic," he said.

Despite all the criticism, Rama remains a loud advocate of Albania's membership and insists his country has no alternative to European integration. His blow is aimed at the system, which in his view can no longer admit new members and decide quickly at the same time. Will Brussels prove him wrong with deeds - or with yet another summit and a joint statement?