Insight
Can EU enlargement gain momentum? by Luigi Scazzieri, 3 November 2022 The war in Ukraine reinvigorated EU enlargement, but recent momentum will be hard to maintain. The Union should increase support for candidates and further develop ways to integrate them before membership. Russia’s attack on Ukraine propelled enlargement back to the top of the EU’s agenda after many years of stasis. In June, EU leaders agreed that Moldova and Ukraine would become candidates for EU membership. They also agreed Georgia could do so if it met certain conditions. In July, the EU began accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, after years of delay. And in early October, the European Commission recommended that Bosnia-Herzegovina should be given candidate status if it further strengthened the rule of law and fundamental rights. It will be difficult to maintain this momentum, however. There are two sets of obstacles. First, the Commission’s annual reports on enlargement, released in October, make clear that the candidates face daunting challenges in meeting the conditions for membership. Second, many member-states, including France, Germany and Italy, are lukewarm about enlargement and think that the EU needs to reform before it expands – but member-states will struggle to agree on reforms. That means the near-term focus of enlargement policy should be on helping the candidate countries to reform themselves, and finding ways to integrate them more closely with the Union before membership. The long road to membership The current candidate countries are Albania, Montenegro, Moldova, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey. Meanwhile, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia and Kosovo are potential candidates. None is close to joining the EU: they must all overcome substantial hurdles to meet the Copenhagen criteria, which define the EU’s standards on strong democratic institutions, a functioning market economy and the ability to take on the obligations of membership. As the table below shows, assessments by organisations like Freedom House, the World Justice Project and Transparency International highlight how most countries aspiring to EU membership display significant democratic shortcomings. Hungary, as the member-state with the greatest rule of law challenges, is included for comparison.
CER INSIGHT: Can EU enlargement gain momentum? 3 NOVEMBER 2022
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