The EU Must Shift Out of Neutral in Its Enlargement Strategy: Championing Liberal Values Means Choosing Sides
The EU Must Shift Out of Neutral in Its Enlargement Strategy: Championing Liberal Values Means Choosing Sides

Author(s): Kurt Bassuener, Valery Perry, Toby Vogel, Bodo Weber
Subject(s): International relations/trade, History of the Holocaust, Post-Communist Transformation, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment
Published by: DPC Democratization Policy Council e.V.
Keywords: EU-Enlargement; Western Balkans;
Summary/Abstract: Immediately prior to the November meeting of the EU’s General Affairs Council, France released a non-paper that underscored that the enlargement halt was not really about enlargement at all. The non-paper was rife with contradictions and redundancies. Its main proposed innovation is a rejiggering of the enlargement policy into seven sequential phases. But the document also demonstrated a worrisome elite orientation, and was void of reference to or grounding in the EU’s foundational source code: the primacy of liberal democratic values and standards. This portends ill for Macron’s vision of the EU more broadly ... DPC recommends a different course to EU member states committed to enlargement and the EU-wide reinforcement of liberal democratic values, at a time when they are challenged both within the Union and from east and west. This does not require any major changes to mechanics, mandates, or procedures, but rather a philosophical shift in approaching the countries of the Western Balkans. The 2015-17 breakthrough in North Macedonia demonstrated two things: a) that the EU’s institutional default setting has for too long been on the side of illiberal elites; and b) the reality that in the expansion of a values-focused EU in the Western Balkans, citizens – not elites – are the Union’s real allies.

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