En 2014, the former President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker put an end to the policy of enlargement of the European Union. With this gesture, he was simply admitting a political fact: at the time, no national leader of the European Union (EU) wanted to bear the political cost of enlargement. The impact of the accession of the countries of central and eastern Europe in 2004-2007 was major, both at the level of public opinion in the old Member States and at the level of the functioning of the European institutions, the budget, the EU priorities, political sensitivities. Enlargement had become a taboo political subject.
From my point of view it was a mistake and we saw what happened next both in the Western Balkans [Albanie, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Macédoine du Nord, Monténégro, Serbie et Kosovo] than in the eastern neighbourhood, with the growing influence and demands of Russia, as well as the feeling of abandonment felt by the pro-European forces in these countries. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia reopens the subject. But even under these conditions, EU enlargement remains a divisive issue for European leaders. The dialogue of the deaf between Eastern and Western Europe seems to be continuing. Bureaucratic arguments, defensive positions, delays institutions seem to hide the lack of political will and courage.
My position has been clear and constant for many years: enlargement is necessary and beneficial for the European Union if it is undertaken with vision and not out of electoral or political opportunism. Waiting and indecision are not solutions. The European Union must urgently relaunch the enlargement process with a plan adapted to today’s political and geostrategic realities. This requires political leadership, recognition of the identity and ideological dimension of enlargement and the construction of a mechanism for negotiation and progressive integration which gives realism to this process. The mechanism could draw inspiration, for example, from the enlargement methodology adopted in 2020 at the EU-Western Balkans Summit. The steps set out therein could be adapted so that the accession negotiation process goes beyond the bureaucratic threshold and delivers tangible results for the citizens of the candidate countries, even before the conclusion of the negotiations and the signature of the accession treaties.
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