Listen: Is the EU actually willing to speed up enlargement?

Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network. EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms. Find the full transcript below: The EU wants to bring new countries on board faster. But after years of waiting, will the Commission’s new proposals actually make enlargement easier? On Tuesday (6 October), the European Commission is expected to propose changes to the EU’s enlargement process. The goal is clear: speed things up. Some candidate countries have been waiting for more than a decade, without a single new member joining the EU. And geopolitics is adding to the pressure. With Russia’s war against Ukraine and a changing global balance of power, EU leaders increasingly see enlargement as a way of strengthening Europe’s weight on the international stage. But bringing one, two, or several new countries into the EU raises some very complicated questions. One of them is decision-making. Another is money. So, what is the Commission proposing? First, it wants to change the way enlargement negotiations are approved. At the moment, EU countries have to agree unanimously on several key steps in the process — including granting candidate status and opening different chapters of negotiations. The Commission wants to make some of those decisions easier and faster, while keeping unanimity for the final decision on membership. The other idea is gradual integration. In other words, candidate countries could take part in more EU programmes and benefit from certain forms of integration before actually becoming full members. This is not exactly new. MEP’s think tankers, EU member states have been raising that idea for a while. And candidate countries already have access to a number of EU programmes and funding mechanisms. The idea is to give countries something concrete while they are still going through the accession process. Now, there is an even bigger obstacle: money. The EU would have to finance enlargement at a time when its budget is already under pressure. Because none of the countries currently considered likely to join in the nearer term would be expected to become a net contributor to the EU budget. In other words, they would likely receive more from the EU than they would contribute. Ukraine is the obvious example. Despite being a big country with a solid economy, its current situation makes it fragile and unable to contribute largely to the EU budget. Its accession could have a significant impact on EU spending, particularly through the Common Agricultural Policy and cohesion funds. So the Commission is considering a transition period during which new members would not immediately have full access to all EU programmes. That could make enlargement financially easier in the short term. But it doesn't solve the problem permanently. Once the transition period ends, the same question comes back. And there is a broader issue too: would the EU itself be able to function as a union of more than 30 countries? What could prove difficult, is that many important decisions still require unanimity — including areas such as foreign policy, taxation and parts of the EU budget. Changing that would require treaty reform, which is politically extremely sensitive because member states would have to give up some of their veto powers. Andrew Duff, a former British liberal MEP who has written about enlargement for the European Policy Centre, argues that the EU should have started thinking about this much earlier — particularly after Brexit. In his view, the EU has not carried out the kind of institutional reform that would prepare it for a much larger membership. So in the end, today’s proposals could make the accession process more flexible and give candidate countries more opportunities to integrate before membership. But they don't resolve two of the biggest questions: how to finance enlargement, and how to reform EU decision-making. Before we wrap up, a quick word on the countries which are believed to become members next. The frontrunner is Montenegro. The most optimistic forecasts suggest it could potentially become an EU member as early as 2028. Then comes Albania, which is also well advanced in the process.