EU Enlargement? Alternative concepts to full membership

All three states now enjoy association agreements with the EU. The countries of the Western Balkans have already been offered a road to accession in principle, and in their relationship to the EU, too, movement is now perceptible. While the stabilisation and association agreements which govern their links to Brussels have already contributed to an improvement, the region’s economy remains well below the level of existing Member States. Moreover, the Western Balkan countries need to step up their commitment to combatting corruption and enforcing the law. The EU is faced with the problem that any future widening will necessarily conflict with the deepening of the union, a dilemma which the friction caused by the latest enlargement, which brought in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, made clear. Adding a further eight or nine countries would significantly increase the number of potential vetoes and thus threaten the EU’s ability to act. In view of this, due consideration should be given to alternatives to full membership, though such a new architecture would, ideally, continue to promote close political and economic cooperation in Europe.