Croatia’s accession to the European Union in 2013 was followed by almost a decade of stagnation in EU enlargement, during which scholars and EU officials mentioned ‘enlargement fatigue’ as the main internal reason behind the reluctance to accept new members. Russia’s abrupt aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 started the ongoing war on the EU’s doorstep and drastically altered the EU enlargement scenario: Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia were quick to submit an application for membership, with the first two also being rapidly recognised as candidate countries. The addition of this Eastern dimension to the EU’s enlargement policy reinvigorated the long-delayed accession prospects of the Western Balkans countries, as demonstrated by the EU’s decisions to grant candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a result of this new geopolitical imperative to widen the Union’s sphere of influence vis-à-vis the Russian threat, enlargement is undoubtedly back at the top of the EU’s political agenda. This has also been confirmed by the words of the most relevant European political figures: Macron, for instance, in a speech he held in June 2023 said that enlargement should take place “as swiftly as possible”. But can EU enlargement to the Eastern Trio and to the Western Balkans be swift in the current scenario? And how could the EU find the best compromise between the geopolitical pressure to enlarge, the defence of its traditional accession criteria, and the need for its own internal reform in carrying out its enlargement policy? This paper adopts a revised version of Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005)’s External Incentives Model (EIM) to assess and compare the effectiveness of the EU’s 2023 Enlargement methodology and of Mihajlović et al. (2023)’s alternative Staged Accession model, based on gradualism and horizontal differentiated integration.
Croatia’s accession to the European Union in 2013 was followed by almost a decade of stagnation in EU enlargement, during which scholars and EU officials mentioned ‘enlargement fatigue’ as the main internal reason behind the reluctance to accept new members. Russia’s abrupt aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 started the ongoing war on the EU’s doorstep and drastically altered the EU enlargement scenario: Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia were quick to submit an application for membership, with the first two also being rapidly recognised as candidate countries. The addition of this Eastern dimension to the EU’s enlargement policy reinvigorated the long-delayed accession prospects of the Western Balkans countries, as demonstrated by the EU’s decisions to grant candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a result of this new geopolitical imperative to widen the Union’s sphere of influence vis-à-vis the Russian threat, enlargement is undoubtedly back at the top of the EU’s political agenda. This has also been confirmed by the words of the most relevant European political figures: Macron, for instance, in a speech he held in June 2023 said that enlargement should take place “as swiftly as possible”. But can EU enlargement to the Eastern Trio and to the Western Balkans be swift in the current scenario? And how could the EU find the best compromise between the geopolitical pressure to enlarge, the defence of its traditional accession criteria, and the need for its own internal reform in carrying out its enlargement policy? This paper adopts a revised version of Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005)’s External Incentives Model (EIM) to assess and compare the effectiveness of the EU’s 2023 Enlargement methodology and of Mihajlović et al. (2023)’s alternative Staged Accession model, based on gradualism and horizontal differentiated integration.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a member state…”: assessing the effectiveness of two alternative EU Enlargement methodologies in the current European scenario.
BONOMO, DAVIDE
2023/2024
Abstract
Croatia’s accession to the European Union in 2013 was followed by almost a decade of stagnation in EU enlargement, during which scholars and EU officials mentioned ‘enlargement fatigue’ as the main internal reason behind the reluctance to accept new members. Russia’s abrupt aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 started the ongoing war on the EU’s doorstep and drastically altered the EU enlargement scenario: Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia were quick to submit an application for membership, with the first two also being rapidly recognised as candidate countries. The addition of this Eastern dimension to the EU’s enlargement policy reinvigorated the long-delayed accession prospects of the Western Balkans countries, as demonstrated by the EU’s decisions to grant candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a result of this new geopolitical imperative to widen the Union’s sphere of influence vis-à-vis the Russian threat, enlargement is undoubtedly back at the top of the EU’s political agenda. This has also been confirmed by the words of the most relevant European political figures: Macron, for instance, in a speech he held in June 2023 said that enlargement should take place “as swiftly as possible”. But can EU enlargement to the Eastern Trio and to the Western Balkans be swift in the current scenario? And how could the EU find the best compromise between the geopolitical pressure to enlarge, the defence of its traditional accession criteria, and the need for its own internal reform in carrying out its enlargement policy? This paper adopts a revised version of Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005)’s External Incentives Model (EIM) to assess and compare the effectiveness of the EU’s 2023 Enlargement methodology and of Mihajlović et al. (2023)’s alternative Staged Accession model, based on gradualism and horizontal differentiated integration.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12608/77446