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Enlargement of the European Union: How should the EU approach it?

Posted on 11 May 2021
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Enlargement of the European Union: How should the EU approach it?

 By Alvaro Perez Cardenes, The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.

Expanding the number of member states, which conform the European Union has been one of its main focuses since its inception, as it went from six members in 1951 when the Treaty of Paris was signed to 27 members that are currently in after the recent exit of the United Kingdom. Even though there have been several countries that have managed to enter the EU, the negotiations for enrolling in the union can be particularly long and arduous for some countries. The first step of the process is to submit an application to join the EU. This application has to be approved both by the European Commission and the European Council in order to be considered an official candidate for accession. Once a country is considered as an official candidate is when the negotiations between that country and the EU begin. The process is completed once the official candidate is able to adopt all the different requirements known as the Copenhagen Criteria, like adopting EU law or carrying out the political and economic reforms needed to be on par with EU standards. However, as just mentioned, the process can be particularly strenuous and last over a decade, for example Croatia, which is the last country to enter the EU applied in 2003 and was able to enter the Union in 2013 (Aguera, 2019).

After the accession of multiple middle eastern countries after the fall of the Soviet Union, like Poland, the Czech Republic or the Baltic republics, the Western Balkans seemed like the next region where the focus would be set in order to start incorporating countries into the EU. Even countries like Montenegro or Serbia have already started the negotiating phase. Nevertheless, it seems like the EU is very doubtful about whether continuing with the enlargement efforts would be beneficial or if on the contrary it would create further problems in the future. This is especially clear after France’s veto on the start of the negotiations for accession of Albania and Northern Macedonia. Even though France was the one that issued a veto, it has been widely argued that there are also other countries like Denmark or the Netherlands, which are particularly doubtful about further enlarging the EU or more specifically starting the negotiation process with Albania (Aguera, 2019; Dabrowski, 2020).

There are several reasons, which explain why these countries have been considering putting a break on European enlargement. Firstly, political scientist Florian Bieber argued for example that France is very sceptical about further enlarging the EU, as it believes that it would hinder their relevance inside the Union, especially due to how the legislative processes are carried out at the EU level. What is more, he argued that countries like the Netherlands also consider the last enlargement processes as not being particularly successful, from the point of view that several countries that accessed the EU during the 2000s like Hungary or Poland have severely undermined the rule of law in their countries since they became members, and this has had several negative consequences for the rest of the EU. Not only that but, countries like Romania and Bulgaria have also not been able to solve their corruption problems even while being a member of the European Union. Therefore, they believe that allowing more countries into the Union could have the same results (Abellan Matamoros, 2019). This is a view that is also shared by some in the French government, as President Macron argued that the veto for starting the negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia was in part due to the need for reform in the negotiation process. The struggle that the EU has experienced with Hungary and Poland and how they have been going against European values like the freedom of the press or the freedom of the judicial system have reassured some that there has been the necessity of reforming the whole process so that the countries that access the EU in the future will not go down the same path (Eisl, 2019; Rankin, 2020). Seeing the need for improvement, France published the so-called “non-paper”, where it outlined the different reforms that needed to take place in the EU accession process. One of the main points is the “reversibility” component, which enables the EU to withdraw from the negotiation process if the candidate country has reverted their stance and they do not longer meet the standards set out by the EU. France´s veto has been particularly controversial. Even though it was heavily criticised inside the EU, as the EU institutions and various member states including Germany were in favour of starting the negotiating process with Albania and North Macedonia, its proposal of reform has been welcomed by many as they believed that the process was a very flawed one, as well as that the EU needed to change its stance on the Balkan enlargement, as they believed that the current process towards the Western Balkans, was packed with lies from both sides. Not only that but it has been argued that the EU should ensure that candidate countries not only advocate for EU standards as publicity for them but also that they are focused on discarding the authoritarian ways and actually carrying out the reforms needed without the demand of pressure from the EU (Barigazzi, 2019; Tcherneva, 2019). What is more, it has been reported that the French government sees further enlarging the EU as the wrong move, they believe that instead of making it bigger the EU and the member states should focus on making the EU an even deeper one. Therefore, France not only believes that the EU should change its focus and start moving towards further integration but also that enabling more countries in would hinder even more the opportunities for this integration to happen. This is especially true if the current candidate countries adopt a similar position to the ones known as the Visegrád countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary), which have not been particularly inclined to supporting further integration efforts of the EU (Eisl, 2019).

Nevertheless, apart from the questions that different member states like France or the Netherlands have risen, other arguments have been made against further enlarging the European Union. Firstly, with 27 members, it is already particularly complicated sometimes to make important decisions at the EU level, especially taking into consideration the different views and agendas of the member states which can be in opposition with one another. Therefore, the question arises that if the EU decided to further enlarge into the Western Balkans, where there are countries that have already started the process in one way or another like Serbia, Montenegro, Albania or North Macedonia, this could put the number of EU member states at over thirty making it even harder to make decisions. What is more, these countries are poorer than the EU average, which could create even bigger problems for existing EU member states like Greece, Portugal or Spain, which are economically dependent on EU funding. Thus, if poorer countries were to come in, this would result in the current members not being able to receive the same amount of economic help that they have been receiving, and so leaving them in a worse economic situation than before the enlargement, which could create tensions between the old members and the newer ones. Not only that but, there are some, which put into question whether or not the economies of the candidate countries would be prepared and able of coping inside the EU or if they would be incapable of handling the situation and instead establishing a very dependent situation with the EU (Rudolf, 2016, Debating Europe).

Even though it is very clear that enlargement has several detractors inside the EU, as well as, it has had some significant negative consequences for the union, it is not so evident that completely stopping this process would be beneficial for the EU, as enlargement also has its positive aspects, as well as, giving up on enlargement could have some unfavourable repercussions for the EU and its neighbourhood, including the current candidate countries. Firstly, enlargement offers multiple benefits for the EU and its wider region as is a key tool for advancing its foreign policy which can lead to increased cooperation, which is crucial, especially for facing common problems in the region, like climate change. In addition, with this process the EU is able to spread their values, which can lead to more democratic societies and better standards of living for the countries that are able to access the EU (European Movement International, 2020).

What is more, it is not only the benefits that enlargement offers to the EU but also the negative consequences that stopping this process would create, that the EU needs to consider. The EU´s foreign policy is mainly based on its soft power and how they are able to use values like democracy and openness to carry out change in a region. Therefore, fulfilling the promises that have been established is key for maintaining this power, so the veto of Albania and North Macedonia to start the negotiation process could have a negative aftermath. This is particularly true in the case of North Macedonia, as they had to carry out difficult negotiations with the Greek government for the change of its name. In addition, there have been studies that argue that the biggest reforms are carried out when a candidate views EU accession as a plausible objective. For that reason, vetoing the accession, could damage their view of the EU, as well as weaken their willingness to carry out important reforms in the country. Not only that but, signs of isolationism could severely damage the EU´s stance as a global player (Dabrowski, 2020; Eisl, 2019). If the EU is not able to acquire a strong position in the Western Balkans, this power vacuum will be filled by other powers. Zoran Zaev and Edi Rama the prime ministers of North Macedonia and Albania respectively have stated that they are more than willing to consider powers other than the EU for trade and investment. Also, Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vucic stated in the Financial Times that the recent actions carried out by the EU made him consider looking for other allies to rely on as it seemed that the Western Balkans were not a priority for the European Union. It has been argued that Russia and China have already started the process of increasing their influence over this region, for instance China has been using the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a tool for extending their influence, as they are using their economic power to finance important infrastructure projects like ports, highways, and power plants in the region. This is particularly true in the case of North Macedonia as China holds a fifth of its external debt. On the other hand, Russia has recently tightened its relationship with Serbia as they have been carrying out military exercises together, like the Slavic Shield 2019 joint drill (Aguera, 2019; Tcherneva and Varma, 2019).

It is true that the EU has had some bad experiences with the enlargement in the past as there have been countries, which have not been able to maintain EU standards and instead they have been damaging the rule of law in the region. Nonetheless, reforming the accession process won’t ensure that the new countries that enter the EU will maintain their democratic values. Therefore, it is very clear that stopping the enlargement process won’t resolve the current situation inside the EU. R. Daniel Kelemen argued that it was not a fault of the accession process that countries like Hungary started moving away from democratic values but rather the conditions inside the EU enabled President Viktor Orbán to do so. He stated: “First, the EU’s half-baked system of party politics and its ingrained reluctance to interfere in the domestic politics of its member states help shield national autocrats from EU intervention. Second, funding and investment from the EU helps sustain these regimes. Third, the free movement of persons in the EU facilitates the exit of dissatisfied citizens, which depletes the opposition and generates remittances, thereby helping these regimes endure”. The EU needs to stop making excuses and instead acknowledge the problems that it has with current members, in order to use their institutional powers for solving them (Eisl, 2019).

In conclusion, even though the French proposals could be beneficial for reforming the accession process and it should be discussed among member states, the EU and the French government should reconsider their actions and resume accession talks with the different candidate countries, due to the fact that if not, this could have very negative consequences for the EU in the future, especially with the case of North Macedonia, which have been a country that has had to endure difficult negotiations and spend a significant amount of political capital in changing its name in order to be considered for starting the negotiations for accession just to be vetoed in the last moment. The EU should consider starting negotiations with these two countries as it would create the atmosphere for considering the needed reforms in the process, as well as it could be used as a message that the EU still has a plan for the Western Balkans, which could deter these countries from further aligning themselves with powers like Russia or China. If the EU is not able to do this, it would be creating the conditions for instability in their neighbourhood (Eisl, 2019; Tcherneva, 2019).

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