Last month, Moldova and Ukraine were granted candidate status by the EU. Cue much back-slapping and cheering from Brussels. But the self-congratulation masked a very different reality. For starters, neither Ukraine nor Moldova is likely to ever join the EU, certainly not on terms either would find acceptable, while both would quickly be disabused of the true nature of the EU’s politics if they ever did join. It all comes down to a cultural Iron Curtain which now cleaves the bloc in two, between a secular and progressive west, and a conservative, largely Slavic and overwhelmingly Catholic east.