After years of quiet, enlargement is back at the center of the European agenda. The European Commission is preparing accession roadmaps for Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova, promising to speed up negotiations and even reworking its own internal rules for a future with more members. The question worth asking is this: why does a Union that spent years admitting newcomers without any hurry suddenly need this now?
The main reason, experts argue, is security. The start of the war in Ukraine forced the EU to rethink absolutely everything, and it even changed the way the bloc sees things. Enlargement used to be presented as a reward for reforms and gradual alignment with European standards.
Now it's seen as a way to strengthen the bloc's borders. Think tanks call it outright a "protective shield" for the eastern and southeastern frontiers. In a draft of a Commission document, the wording leaves no doubt: enlargement remains a "geopolitical imperative." Taking in new members has become a question of strategic resilience.
Thus, the EU wants to reinforce its eastern phalanx. It's worth noting that, at the moment, the core of the eastern flank is made up of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, Romania and Bulgaria. All of these countries hold not entirely pleasant feelings toward Russia and associate themselves more with the West.
Another reason for the EU's quick decisions is its changing relationship with the United States. Against the backdrop of tension with Washington, Brussels increasingly looks at the like-minded democracies on its own borders as a natural support. If the old transatlantic alliance is cracking, Europe needs to rally its neighbors around its own center.
The factor of time and competition shouldn't be forgotten either. Within the EU there's a fear that a process dragged out over decades works against the Union itself. The longer a candidate waits at the threshold, the higher the risk of disillusionment inside the country, and the more actively the competitors move.
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