Revitalising EU Enlargement? A New Dawn in EU Accession Post-Ukraine Invasion

Abstract

In this article, we compare the developments of the enlargement policy after Russia invaded Ukraine to the policy prior to the invasion covering the period after the Big Bang enlargement. The widening policy before the invasion was rather inefficient because the member states governments assessed the importance of institutional binding of new members disparately, which affected the aspiring countries, as the EU appeared to be indecisive regarding the accession of new states. The perception of an increased security threat, because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is likely to lead to a shift in the European Union’s enlargement policy, including the demands for an institutional adjustment in the EU to increase its integration capacity and simplify the decision-making procedures. It is, however, questionable whether eventual institutional adjustments will produce desirable outcomes for the European Union because of the existence of different interests among the member states.