I think the recent NATO Summit held in Wales is one of the most important summits that will determine the EU's destiny.It is a summit in which Turkey took center stage with the new dynamics in the Middle East and Caucasia taken into consideration. During the Minsk Meetings that were held in Belarus two weeks ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined the significance of the summit when he warned Ukraine about what it would face in the case that it took any steps to enter NATO. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also participated in some sessions of the summit.If Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, this does not merely mean that one more country will be added to the organization; it will also deal a major blow to Russia's Eurasia project. Moreover, it will be a development that will terminate the current EU, which is centered on Germany and France. It is also of great importance as it will redraw the EU's borders and will completely change the power balance in the Middle East and Caucasia. Germany, though not very overtly, will object to it.It is seen that Germany's influence in the EU is declining gradually even under Jean-Claude Juncker's presidency of the European Commission.European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi announced on Thursday that the ECB would launch an interest rate cut and initiate an asset purchase program. This development shows us that Germany's dominance over the ECB is also being undermined.At last, the ECB, though a little bit late, is doing what it has to do. The expansionary monetary policies alone are not enough to save the EU from crisis. The EU needs to expand toward its east in political terms as well. Ukraine becoming a NATO member carries a lot of weight in that it will create new balances and will be a significant step to solve the Ukrainian crisis permanently.Can Ukraine become a NATO member or under which circumstances can it become one (this question is the same as the question of whether the EU can expand toward its east)?The answer: it is only possible for Ukraine to become a NATO member by challenging Russia if Russia soon creates an alternative to the EU in the fields of energy, natural resources and regional markets. This can be achieved in the following three ways: 1 Creating a new economic union in the region by building trade routes - highspeed railway lines - which will start from the end of the East China Sea to reach Turkey, passing through Pacific Asia, Caucasia and the Middle East. 2 Transporting Caucasian, Caspian, Iranian, Iraqi and Levantine natural gas and oil reservoirs to Adriatic pipelines through the Southern Gas Corridor and Anatolian energy corridors, thus turning Turkish ports in the Mediterranean into processing and pricing centers. In accordance with this, an energy stock exchange, which Turkey will establish in the near future, will acquire a regional dimension, as a reference to global energy pricing. 3 Accepting Turkey into the EU soon by taking Turkey's and all eastern European counties' interests into consideration and basing Turkey's membership on a legal and safe superstructure.Here I am offering a new EU which is an alternative to Russia's Eurasian union project.This new EU will embrace Turkey and then will expand toward Georgia and Ukraine. A monetary union can be formed only when political and fiscal unions are established on an equal footing. Thus, Turkey can be an EU member without participating in the eurozone.The NATO Summit may apply an earlier date for the negotiation of the two most important chapters - Chapter 15 and Chapter 31, which are about energy issues and foreign security and defense policy respectively - in Turkey's membership process. A while ago, Erdoğan slammed the EU for not opening these chapters. It seems Erdoğan has turned out to be right. Chapter 15 includes major topics about how to contribute to the EU's contestability, how to ensure the security of energy supply and how to protect the environment by using sustainable development.Before going to Wales, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid a visit to Azerbaijan to determine the official opening date of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line and the South Caucasia pipeline of the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) project. Therefore, there is no other choice for the EU apart from following the path determined by Turkey, or the path which Russia and Germany draw together.The EU's survival and becoming a welfare state once again is only possible with its expansion toward the East. Otherwise, the alternative for the EU is to become a warfare bloc.