EU enlargement – Moving forward with pragmatism

Hannes Swoboda

No 106, wiiw Policy Notes from The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw

Abstract: A credible EU enlargement policy remains necessary from a geopolitical perspective, but can only succeed through a more pragmatic and gradual integration approach. New members amplify the existing challenges to EU decision making, rule-of-law conditionality and political cohesion, particularly given the circumstances of Russian aggression, hybrid threats and rising nationalist and far-right forces within the Union. Against this backdrop, the highly heterogeneous situations of the Western Balkan states, Ukraine, Moldova and other candidate countries, the unresolved bilateral conflicts, domestic polarisation and relative poverty all shape public scepticism in current member states. This paper rejects ‘buffer-zone’ concepts as a form of capitulation, and instead advocates stepwise integration into the single market, Schengen and selected policies, tied to verifiable reforms, reversible conditionality, and strengthened financial and political support. Such a model would allow differentiated, reversible accession pathways, while giving the EU time to reform its own institutions and decision-making rules, ensuring that enlargement reinforces, rather than undermines, the Union’s capacity to act and its foundational values.

Keywords: EU enlargement; Western Balkans; Gradual integration; Rule of law and conditionality; Russian aggression and hybrid threats (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 F55 K33 O52 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 2026-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published as wiiw Policy Note

Downloads: (external link)
https://wiiw.ac.at/eu-enlargement--moving-forward-with-pragmatism-dlp-7543.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wii:pnotes:pn:106

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://wiiw.ac.at

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in wiiw Policy Notes from The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Customer service ().