The debate on the EU’s future has to involve a simultaneous discussion about enlargement, neighbourhood and reform. Russia’s war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed the context of EU enlargement policy as well as the functioning of the Union, recalling geopolitics. Russia’s exercise of neo-imperial control brings all governments – particularly the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood and Western Balkans – in a vulnerable position by calling into question basic principles of a rules-based international order and challenging essential EU values. It also affects the question of dependencies on geopolitical powers such as China, Russia, Turkey, and the West. The EU is at a crossroad. While putting considerable emphasis on conditionality, it will likely have to move away from an enlargement policy focusing overwhelmingly on incremental reform to one that is about the survival of independent, self-determined states. Meanwhile, Ukraine and Moldova joined the group of official EU candidate countries in June 2022, which also includes Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, North Macedonia and Albania. Bosnia and Herzegovina applied for EU membership in 2016 and Georgia in 2022, but so far remain potential candidates. Visibly, the European Union – absorbed by other crises and the impact of the war – is struggling to respond.

For a long time, enlargement was considered one of the EU’s most successful foreign policy instruments. But today the EU’s enlargement and neighbourhood strategy require a major re-set and new political answers.