With Russian troops having
been in Ukraine for over four years by March, 2026, the case was indeed being
made then for the E.U. enlarging as much and as soon as possible by adding new
states, including Ukraine. For in addition to making it more difficult for
Russia to invade countries in Eastern Europe by turning them into E.U. states, the
main way that a federal union, whether the E.U. or U.S., expands is by the
accession of new states from what had been sovereign countries. This is why Canada
would enter the U.S. as a state, or, more likely, a few states, rather than in
a merge. Especially with the Russians having been dropping bombs on Ukrainian
people and infrastructure for years, giving up some governmental sovereignty was
arguably not too high a price for state governments to accept.
In a public effort to push the
accession process along for their respective future states, Serbian President
Aleksandar Vucic and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama published an op-ed in a
European newspaper to propose “functional partial integration serving as an
intermediate step to revive the EU enlargement process and increase stability
in the region.”[1] In
other words, Serbia and Albania would at some point get some but not all of the
rights that go along with E.U. statehood. The single market and the Schengen
area would be granted as the intermediate step, while no decision-making power would
be extended at the federal level either for the governments of Serbia and
Albania (in the European Council and the Council of Ministers) or for Serbians
and Albanians in having elected representatives in the European Parliament. The
“trial balloon” of giving Ukraine a similar intermediate limbo-state had popped
rather loudly at an E.U. summit, so it would seem to follow that the proposal
by the Serbia and Albanian leaders would be dead on arrival at the European
Council.
The frustration with the
enlargement process in general was certainly palpable by 2026 and could explain
the desperate attempt of Serbia and Albania to get at least one foot into the E.U. sooner rather
than later. Thanks in large part to Hungary’s ongoing veto of Ukraine’s
accession process from being formally carried out, obstacles to enlargement
were getting a lot of press in early 2026. In 2025, an E.U. report on enlargement
“highlighted Belgrade’s lack of alignment” with the E.U.’s sanctions against
Russia for having unjustifiably invaded Ukraine.[2]
Serbia’s lack of reform for media freedom, electoral law, and civil society had
also been responsible for the stall in talks. As for Albania, although it was
considered “one of the most promising candidates for EU accession,” corruption remained
stubbornly entrenched. It would be interesting to compare that corruption with
that which was in Ukraine at the time. The question of whether geo-political
urgency should relegate concerns about corruption has no easy answer except
perhaps in lopping off the extremes. To be sure, Albania had introduced the anti-corruption
authority SPAK, but the more interesting question is perhaps whether the
Ukrainian government did likewise in a way that leaves a viable record of less
corruption.
In general, the “accession
process for Serbia and other Western Balkan countries (had) stalled for years,
as candidate countries (had not) made sufficient process on rule of law, anti-corruption
measures, media freedom and judicial reforms. . .”[3]
With the NATO defensive umbrella in place, except for Ukraine, the urgency
pertaining to the rest of the candidates was not sufficient, I submit, to
justify not finishing the job on rule of law, anti-corruption, media freedom
and judicial reforms because all of these are very important to a civil society
and a republic on an ongoing basis. Granting some candidate countries some
intermediate rights could be expected to reduce the incentive of those state
governments to continue to come into alignment with the E.U.’s expectations
prior to statehood being fully granted.
Regarding the glacial pace of enlargement generally, a silver-lining to that dark cloud can be seen in that something had to be done about the stultifying impact of the principle of unanimity in the European Council before gaining even more states would make reaching unanimity even more difficult that it was for 27 states. Put another way, making sure that the candidate states made the requisite reforms not only would render the E.U. more solidly democratic and based on the rule of law and freedom (e.g., of the press), but would also give the E.U. more time to reform its internal decision-making process where unanimity was still required for federal law and foreign (and defense) policy to be enacted and promulgated, respectively. Not everything that seems weak in the E.U. is actually weakness, though admittedly requiring unanimity from 27 governments can be coined an exercise in futility in service to the absurd.
