After the fall of Poland at the start of the second world war, a paradoxical peace reigned. Carnage was on the cards, but not quite yet. The “phoney war” lasted for eight months, ending when Germany invaded its western neighbours. Today the European Union is going through a “phoney enlargement”. On paper up to nine countries are making progress towards membership. Both in the capitals of the countries looking to join and in Brussels, officials say preparations are being made, reforms enacted, boxes ticked. But whether the mooted expansion will happen is still doubtful. A flush of enthusiasm in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given way to the realisation that the journey from 27 to 36 will be long and uncertain. A target of 2030 used to be seen as aspirational. It now looks delusional.
Events in recent days show why. A slew of countries that have applied to join the EU have demonstrated why they are not yet members. In Georgia a repressive “foreign agent” law that mimics the manner Russia once cracked down on civil society was approved by parliament on May 14th despite vast protests. Georgians overwhelmingly want a European future but are governed by an oligarchic caste that favours rapprochement with the Kremlin, not Brussels. A few days earlier a new nationalist president took office in North Macedonia, one of six western Balkan aspirants to EU membership. Instead of reciting the usual platitudes in her inaugural speech, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova referred to her country merely as “Macedonia”, thus knowingly blowing up a deal with Greece, which worries its neighbour’s use of the name will one day degenerate into territorial claims on its region of that name. This pact had been a prerequisite for it to become a candidate for EU accession. And on May 8th Serbia announced a “shared future” with China as it greeted Xi Jinping with great pomp in Belgrade. It will soon enact a free-trade agreement with China that is completely incompatible with EU membership.
Before 2022, enlargement had the make-believe dynamics of the old communist joke whereby “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work”. The EU feigned interest in letting in new members, they purported to make the reforms needed to gain access. Both sides knew it was going nowhere; Croatia had been the last country to join the club, in 2013. War on the continent jolted the EU out of this enlargement fatigue. Not only did Ukraine and Moldova apply to become members, but dormant requests in the Balkans took on a new appeal (Turkey is technically a candidate for accession, but not in practice). The geopolitical imperative of snuffing out Russian influence meant the EU was willing—for a time—to look past the unpreparedness of the countries that had asked to join. Progress was made: Ukraine, Moldova and Bosnia-Herzegovina were cleared to start formal accession talks.
The challenge now is to keep the old fatigue at bay. The EU has been mindful that the reforms needed to join the club—more corruption-busting, better courts, reformed economies and so on—are painful for politicians. The rewards are far in the future, for their successors to enjoy. Now the EU wants the benefits to come alongside the pain. Many perks of joining the club, such as being part of its single market, could be offered before formal membership. A €6bn ($6.5bn) pot of loans and grants will soon be doled out to Balkan countries that can show they are making those painful reforms. The idea was that a new dynamic would overtake the cynical one of yesteryear.
So far it has not worked, says Milena Mihajlovic of the European Policy Centre (CEP), a think-tank in Belgrade. “The belief enlargement will happen in the short term is not there,” she says. Far from reforming their way to membership, countries in the Balkans have made at least half a step back for every step forward. A region “rich in history” (diplomat-speak for they all hate each other) has found it hard to bury old enmities. Relations between Serbia and Kosovo, which split from Serbia in 2008, remain execrable. Albania has locked up the ethnic-Greek mayor of a small town, annoying its neighbour. Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine all have chunks of their territory controlled by Russia. Throughout the region, politics remain as messy as ever. Serbia has two ministers who are under American sanctions for their ties to Russia.
Give me enlargement, but not yet
Even if the applicants were ready, would they be let in? Countries including France and Germany want the EU to undertake its own deep-seated reforms before it enlarges. This might include more decisions being made by qualified majority, a rewiring of the union for which little preparation has so far been done. Admitting Ukraine, a farming powerhouse, would require an overhaul of the common agricultural policy, which tends to bring out the pitchforks. The fact that any country can block the entry of a new member makes the process particularly tortuous. It took months to get Hungary’s Viktor Orban to lift his veto on Ukraine getting to the next stage of accession (he was invited to leave the room during the vote in December). Would a future President Marine Le Pen in France, say, prove so accommodating? Plenty of people in applicant countries still think they will end up being offered something short of full EU membership.
Enlargement cannot stay in this suspended state for long. To get the EU money on offer, Balkan countries this summer will have to put up reform plans that will either pass muster with Brussels or not. Within a year or so the first draft of the EU budget running from 2028 to 2035 will be presented. Failure to reform key programmes such as farming subsidies will indicate a lack of intent on the part of existing members to let new ones in. Both sides will thus be forced to show if they are serious about enlargement. The phoneyness will not be able to last long.
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