ELIAMEP, in cooperation with diANEOSIS, publishes a series of four expert analyses under the title “Challenges and opportunities in the new political cycle of the European Union”. These papers explain in detail the major stakes in four, very critical areas: defense, enlargement of the Union to the new countries, economic governance and the Stability Pact, as well as asylum and migration policies. Ioannis Armakolas and Alexandra Voudouri co-authored the analysis concerning the issue of EU enlargement.
Overview
The war in Ukraine was also a catalyst for the enlargement of the Union. As in previous phases of EU enlargement, the respective reasons and concerns are both political and economic, which is evident from a glance at the list of candidate countries after 2023, whether or not negotiations have started: Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
How will they affect the Union’s budgets? Which countries are likely to lose European funds because of the new members? How feasible is it for the candidate countries to proceed immediately with the institutional and economic reforms required by the accession process? “The EU needs to offer both a credible ‘roadmap’ for deeper integration of candidate countries in the coming years, and clarity on its own path to the necessary reforms,” the authors note. “There should, moreover, be a common approach linking reforms and enlargement in a step-by-step manner, as well as a mechanism to ‘measure’ the respective progress.”
You can read the analysis on the topic of enlargement here.
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