The community's prediction is too high. I will copy here a comment I made on a Facebook group about this: ---- The issue is that joining the EU is not simply "you're in". The reason the process takes so long is that the applicant's internal law needs to be made compatible with the EU's *acquis communautaire* - the nearly seven decades of European legislation and regulations. This sometimes requires very significant structural changes in a country's political makeup - for example, in preparation for their future membership, Serbia recently held a refere...

Hooray, Ukraine is a candidate. The next step is for the Commission to recommend the start of negotiations. In the good ol' days, in the 90s, the Commission might recommend this simultaneously with recommending granting candidate status, but even for a relatively quick recent process like Croatia's that does not seem to have been the case. It also won't happen that the Council simultaneously approves the candidate status and sets the negotiations start date simultaneously. (Remember that scene in *Spaceballs*? > "You're always preparing! Just GO!" Mel ...

any government that has had de facto control over at least 30% of the 2021 Ukrainian territory

De jure territory (including Crimea and the Donbas republics) or de facto territory (without those)?

@doromix1.6 deal. We'll find a mutually acceptable way for my $20 to reach you (all the way from Russia itself!) should Putin invade by 23:59 Ukraine time on March 21, and if that does not happen you pay me $120.

I'm easily reachable on Google Mail, the Book of Faces, the Blue Bird of Laconic Anger and The Social Network I Cannot Access (LinkedIn is banned in Russia).

— edited by BrunoParga

Now, let's imagine one scenario where basically none of the bad possibilities mentioned above obtains; "Jupiter" wins re-election in France, Ukraine continues acting strictly as an "honorable victim", a possible enlargement of NATO to Finland and Sweden does not sow division by means of Russian reaction. In short, everyone who needs to act in concert for Ukraine to join, does so. The first branch of this scenario supposes these relevant actors decide to follow the established procedure for enlargement, but try to shave off as much time as possible in ea...

@haukurth @Publicola those are the points we'd've scored had the question resolved at the original planned date (the end of 2022). Since it resolved early, the only time frame for which points are awarded are those between opening and resolution. There's even a note under the community prediction distribution graph:

Note: this question resolved before its original close time. You earned points up until the question resolution, but not afterwards.

Unlike Ukraine, the US is obligated by treaty to protect NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

I would really like to be able to express myself in odds ratios rather than percentages. Part of the reason is to go outside of the range [0.01, 0.99], as mentioned in [this thread](https://www.metaculus.com/questions/935/platform-feature-suggestions/#comment-31556); but that is not all. I think odds ratios lead to clearer thinking about probabilities and updates. One has to make a really strong effort to remember that changing from 48% to 52% is very, very different than changing from 95% to 99%. Save for arithmetic errors on my part (pobody's nerfect...

@admins Kiev is the Russian name of the city; the Ukrainian name is [Kyiv](https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/). It is usually a good thing to use the latter, local name, and even more so in this context, I think. (Also, for reference about what might appears in other questions, using the name of the country with an article - "the Ukraine" - suggests it is a part of Russia, based on the Russian language distinction between в Украине and на Украине. So whenever the country is mentioned, it is sensible to write it without an article.) *— edited by Brun...

The community is too low on this; Erdogan's opposition was a matter of domestic politics. Now that he's won the election, for some definition of winning, the matter of Swedish accession becomes simply a matter of payment. He'll sell for F-16s.

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1663604…

@doromix1.6 I owe you $20. I will try to contact you, but due to technical limitations that might fail - can you please write me at gmail, or facebook, or twitter?

@(benjsmith) NATO has an "open doors" policy towards countries in its geographical scope. They have stated that once Finland applies they could be accepted ~~within 24 hours~~ quite quickly. Edit: I made a mistake. I was reading too much pro-Ukraine materials and failed to filter out this claim about 24 hours, which is incorrect. As has been pointed out, accession of any country to NATO needs to go through the proper ratification process, and the fastest that can happen is likely several weeks/a few months. @aqsalose @JakobFiK @RyanBeck *— edited by Br...

@moderators (should I tag admins instead?), I am a former diplomat, and as such I have a working knowledge of treaty law. There is a misconception in the question as formulated: > This question resolves positively if, between this question opening and 2024, at least one of India, Israel or Pakistan sign the NPT, according to reputable sources. This does not require that any of these states actually accede to the NPT or even that it is seen as likely that they will do so. That implies there is a distinction between these states "signing" and "acceding" ...

@nextbigfuture Ukraine never lost the city of Kyiv, what they've now recaptured is the whole of Kyiv Province.

At this point, Webb has cleared 250 out of 344 single points of failure.

I am not sure about the resolution criteria here. There is a not too unlikely scenario: Erdoğan loses, refuses to accept defeat, tries to stay in office, then gets couped or something like that, all before the end of the year. I think this would count as a "no" according to the spirit of the prediction, but a "yes" according to the letter.

@admins should this be grouped with the same prediction but for 2025?

The question about Ukraine excluded already-occupied areas and this one should, too (Transnistria, Abkhazia and Tskhinvali/"South Ossetia")

@sammyColt sounds like you should bet, if your confidence is so different from the community's. What terms would be acceptable to you?

@(Parsnip) that's not even considering the time it would take for an actual referendum. Let's look at the timeline: May 2011: the SNP wins a majority in Scottish elections October 2012: a referendum-friendly Westminster government signs the Edinburgh Agreement with the Scottish government November 2013: the Scottish Parliament passes the law providing for the conduct of the actual referendum September 2014: people vote in the referendum That's well over three years between the SNP victory and the referendum. There are a few important differences h...