“There is a much wider debate on the costs and benefits of enlargement that will need to take place” – Steven Blockmans 

While several EU candidate countries, including Montenegro and Albania, are accelerating their accession process, the debate about the wider questions of enlargement remains wide open. It includes the questions of what the budgetary consequences of enlargement and the rights of new Member States will be, as well as what would happen if the internal politics of the current Member States prevent them from ratifying the accession treaties.

We discussed these issues with Steven Blockmans, Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, on the sidelines of this year’s Belgrade Security Conference. Blockmans assesses that the debate on the long-term EU budget is shaping the debate on enlargement as well. He also proposes a targeted campaign across EU Member States which will raise awareness about the costs and benefits of enlargement, taking into account its geopolitical and security aspects.

European Western Balkans (EWB): The European Commission once again postponed the adoption of the pre-enlargement policy reviews. Why do you think that it takes such a long time for the Commission to publish the document, even though it was announced for spring 2025?

Steven Blockmans (SB): The policy reviews were promised for the first 100 days of the new Commission’s term. And all we got was a placeholder with a communication that could be printed on a T-shirt. And then indeed in the enlargement package, more than 300 days into the second von der Leyen Commission, we were promised that they will come “soon”. Why? I imagine that policy adaptations which have budgetary consequences are tied to a much more difficult debate with the Member States on the 7-year Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) of the EU.

This would, of course, particularly pertain to the area of agriculture where Ukraine is a global player and would move the needle quite a bit if it were to join the EU in the next decade. It obviously also applies to the area of cohesion funding which is the extension of pre-accession funding once you are in the European Union. This again has major financial consequences for some of the Member States, triggering sceptics of the proposals that the European Commission puts on the table, especially those who are opposed to further EU enlargement.

EWB: Do you think that a solution can be found that everybody can live with?

SB: Yes, I think so. If past practice is anything to go by then these negotiations are the most difficult ones that the EU engages in. This is about the future distribution of money and, in a way, power across the entire European Union. It will be a particularly difficult debate in countries that are or risk becoming net contributors to the EU budget: do they get enough return from the EU for the investment that they put into it?

Discussions are underway to reform cohesion and agricultural funding in the EU, but progress is slow. To take the edges off, maybe solutions can be found in off-budget type of arrangements, in particular for Ukraine and its reconstruction which is, of course, an enormous bill where others than the EU – Russia in particular— are also be expected to pay.

EWB: So, do you think the budget is the main source of challenges for European Commission when it comes to these pre-enlargement reviews? It’s not about the institutional reform and voting rights?

SB: The in-depth reviews are both on substantive policy fields as well as on governance issues and I do not want to diminish the importance of the governance issues at all. As a result of ongoing practices of vetocracy, we have seen all kinds of initiatives being floated by clusters of Member States with bigger or smaller groups of backers, especially on decision-making reform with the mainstreaming of qualified majority voting in the Council, also in the context of pre-accesison procedures. Those are very difficult negotiations exactly because they touch on issues of national sovereignty and ultimately relate to the balance of power inside the EU. And so, it is a difficult conversation which has been had for so many years that there’s far less appetite to spend time, energy and political capital on those types of issues at the moment. Conversely, the budget has a firmer deadline and is about concrete numbers, which makes for a more concentrated discussion.

EWB: In recent weeks, Marta Kos floated an idea of “safeguards” and “probation periods” in the accession treaties. Do you think that the intention behind it is to say – if we don’t have institutional reform before new countries join, at least we will have these safeguards that can then prevent new Member States from vetoing certain policies?

SB: I think the assumption in your question is correct. The accession treaties are, legally speaking, on a par with the foundational treaties of the European Union. Any institutional arrangements that are included in those accession treaties change those foundational treaties to accommodate a new member who will get or not get their Commissioner, a weighted vote in the Council, a certain number of members of the European Parliament, a judge in the Court, etc.

In that sense, the ideas that have been floated are aimed of introducing amendments to the governance structures of the EU not through the regular procedure of treaty change, which includes holding a convention, but through the ratification of the next accession treaty.

EWB: We saw in the recent Eurobarometer that, on the level of the EU, there is a majority support for enlargement but in the biggest member states, France, Germany there is much more scepticism. Do you think that these proposals of safeguards in the accession treaties could persuade not only the politicians but also the public that enlargement can and should happen?

SB: It will not be enough. First of all, I want to dispel the notion that there is really a kind of East-West divide within the EU as far as support for enlargement is concerned. If you look at that same Special Eurobarometer poll of September of this year, it shows that some of the countries that have joined in 2004 have actually dropped in terms of public support for enlargement, which is also more narrowly interpreted as a proposition which only applies to Ukraine. But you are right, of course, to point to the scepticism in some of the bigger Member States. France, for instance, has a constitutional requirement which is tougher than those of other EU Member States in ratifying an accession treaty. There is either a three-fifths majority in parliament or majority support in a referendum that is required. In either case, popular sentiment about the EU and enlargement plays an enormous role.

Now, those types of governance safeguards that the Commission has proposed or is thinking about proposing, they matter because they signal that the EU intends to be tougher on the protection of the rule of law and will prevent new members from becoming ’Hungaries’ after they have joined. So, these safeguards will help, but that will not be enough.

There is a much wider debate on the costs and benefits of enlargement that will need to take place; one that also deals with various forms of security of the continent and thus of voters in, for example, France. There is really a need for a targeted campaign across EU member states which will raise awareness about the costs and benefits and that ultimately persuades a majority of voters that indeed it is in their self-interest to enlarge the EU.

EWB: Some believe that there is a risk that only one or two countries become Member States in the foreseeable future and others do not. That doesn’t actually resolve then the geopolitical necessity for enlargement. So, do you think that accepting a couple of these smaller frontrunner candidate countries, such as Montenegro and Albania, can create this positive momentum to actually, in due course, accept other countries as well?

SB: I think that’s absolutely possible for smaller entrants to pave the way for others. Their successful integration will prove that EU membership is not a pipedream and that there is return on all the investments made during the pre-accession process.

In geostrategic terms it’s key and in the self-interest of the EU and its member states that Serbia joins, that Ukraine joins. But of course that requires a political leadership in Serbia that is willing to actually push through the reforms which are in society’s interest, and in the interest of regional stability and European integration. And as far as Ukraine is concerned, of course there’s a bigger problem whereby a sound settlement needs to be found for the ongoing war.

EWB: And when it comes to motivating reforms, in a recent policy paper that you published with CEPS, you suggested, among other things, that the European Commission should quantify its grades and its assessments of the situation in candidate countries. Can you elaborate a bit on how this would actually help make the process more efficient and politically significant?

SB: It would certainly make the process more transparent and more politically significant. Currently, the European Commission applies a qualitative assessment whereby it uses five categories of notions which characterise the level of progress or regression that a candidate country has been observed to make over the past year. Now, for most required reforms these five categories can be easily quantified into numbers from 1 to 5, thereby creating a much more effective communication tool to show where a country is at in its level of preparedness towards membership of the EU. This may stimulate further positive competition between candidate countries in the run-up to accession. It is also an accountability mechanism which could be used more effectively in applying conditionality in a positive or a negative sense.

EWB: But even if the quantification is introduced, one would still need the European Commission to actually be ready to say transparently that a grade should be lowered. There is an impression that this Commission has shown more readiness to be stricter, for example, when it comes to Serbia when assessing the domestic situation and the state of reforms. But do you think that it’s a long-term change or just something temporary?

SB: Well, there’s definitely a change in tone over the last year on the side not just of the European Commission but also the High Representative. From silence which almost made them complicit with the government’s actions, to cautious engagement with “dear Aleksandar”, to a more open frustration as expressed recently in the annual report. The Commission is thereby catching up with public perception, both domestically in Serbia as well as internationally, which has become more and more negative about the country’s backsliding over the past year. But the change in EU rhetoric does not translate, oddly enough, into the technical assessment in the latest annual report, which suggests that Serbia is slowing down on reforms or, at a standstill when compared to the annual reporting of 2024. The Commission’s assessment thus still appears out of sync with public perception. If that assessment were formally graded and ranked in comparison with other candidates, then the numbers would speak for themselves and require accountability mechanisms to kick in. This would mean a reversibility of certain benefits which have been accrued over time in the pre-accession process: a return of funding, or a different distribution of funding to civil society organisations, independent media or indeed other candidate countries under the gradual integration mechanisms of the Growth Plan, etc.

EWB: In the paper, you propose tying in the enlargement reports with the Growth Plan and simplifying the process.

SB: All of these gradual integration mechanisms which run parallel to the formal accession negotiations should be integrated in and applied in a much more transparent way. What we don’t know for example, now, is even if budget conditionality under the Growth Plan is price-tagged by the European Commission, to what extent these conditionalities actually depend on and correspond with the regular Copenhagen criteria, in particular the fundamentals which underpin the entire pre-accession process.

The European Commission has not convincingly explained how the conditionalities applied in the gradual integration mechanisms tie in with those in the formal accession process. Presumably, there is this linkage but it would be so much simpler as a policy agenda and so much more transparent and easier therefore to communicate if all of this were merged and tied into not just a qualitative but also a quantitative assessment in the annual reporting. The would streamline the enlargement process which, contrary to von der Leyen’s ’simplification agenda’, has only become more complex over the past years.

EWB: You propose introducing a category of a “Nominated Member State” which intends to resolve the potential issue of Member States not ratifying the accession treaty due to their internal political reasons. Do you think that this is a realistic proposal? Have you had conversations with Member State governments? How do they react to your proposals?

SB: Yes, we’ve had those conversations and we’ve had them with candidate country ambassadors in Brussels as well. The idea is generally welcomed, albeit with a caveat. The status of the “Nominated Member State” would be bestowed by the European Commission upon the candidate country that has closed its accession negotiations and has submitted the accession treaty for ratification. That would be the moment whereby the benefits of membership are as full as they can get prior to the ceremonial moment of entry. But that status should not be indefinite. It should come with a kind of sunset clause whereby that nominated member state label is reviewed every two years. That would put a spotlight on any member state is holding up the ratification process and raise the political cost for further delays on their part.

This time frame of two years is inspired by the average number of months that it would take for Member States and the European Parliament to ratify an accession treaty. It took 18 months for Croatia. The reason why it will be more difficult now is not just because of domestic political changes in a populist and Eurosceptic direction, but also because of the constitutional arrangements that, for example, apply in France.

The interview was conducted by Aleksandar Ivković and was originally published by the EuropeanWesternBalkans.

Photo c: Flickr / Belgrade Security Conference