Summary
EU Candidate Countries in the Western Balkans and Eastern Neighbourhood are situated at the intersection of Europe’s geopolitical, geoeconomic, and security interests. These countries face structural socio-economic vulnerabilities that make them highly exposed to malign external interferences from competing geopolitical powers. Even as EU enlargement gains new momentum, the weaponisation of these external interferences and strategic economic dependencies threatens to undermine their economic stability and severely obstruct their European integration.
EU support is instrumental in building up Candidate Country resilience. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of this support can be undermined by the temporary nature of EU crisis response mechanisms, weak domestic governance and socio-economic policies, and limited absorption capacity of EU funds. Concerns remain around the newly introduced Facilities, which are associated with extra administrative burdens for Candidate Countries, as well as concerns related to the consistent application of conditionality.
To bolster socio-economic resilience in the Candidate Countries the EU should:
- align its support with domestic reforms focused on addressing structural socio-economic issues and building long-term resilience;
- ensure sustainable Candidate Country access to long-term and low-cost financial instruments while increasing absorption capacity of financial support; and
- strengthen the application of conditionality and uphold the transparency and credibility of EU financial support in the broader enlargement process.
