Executive Summary
The EU is rethinking its enlargement strategy amidst geopolitical pressures to integrate candidate countries more effectively while safeguarding democratic standards and maintaining internal stability.
As the European Union (EU) prepares for a new wave of enlargement to include Candidate Countries (CCs) from the Western Balkans and Eastern Neighbourhood, a range of challenges needs to be addressed. Developments are unfolding against a complex and volatile international backdrop that includes Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine as well as hybrid external threats targeting CCs, creating a sense of geopolitical urgency. In this context, the EU and its Member States (MS) have been debating how to adapt enlargement policies to ensure a robust and credible integration process, while mitigating risks of internal disruption after accession. A number of ideas have emerged on how to maintain the enlargement momentum, how to address growing democratic backsliding, and how to ensure the EU’s own internal preparedness. These include deepening pre-accession integration of CCs in both the economic and security domains, while maintaining respect for the democratic fundamentals at the core of the process. This implies better connecting CCs to existing EU structures while developing new joint cooperation frameworks, making the integration process more reciprocal and allowing the EU to also benefit from CCs’ experience. Ultimately, enlargement should be embedded within a clearly articulated political project that engages both MS and CCs at all political and societal levels. This policy brief maps the current policy debate and analyses EU and MS preferences for enlargement and neighbourhood policies, based on 72 interviews with 77 respondents conducted in six MS – namely Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland – between November 2025 and February 2026, which are representative of the different positions on enlargement within the EU1 . The paper then identifies options for future EU policies.
