Analysis | Reinvigorating the EU enlargement policy: Phasing-in as a way to overcome the enlargement impasse

The concepts of accelerated or gradual integration were formally introduced in early 2020 when the European Commission presented the enhanced enlargement methodology[1] with the ambition to improve the process, re-establish the transformative power of EU enlargement and make the candidates’ European path more predictable and dynamic. The new methodology reorganized the negotiating chapters into larger clusters to ensure a faster and smoother process of their opening and closing, introduced a stronger system of rewards and sanctions with the EU’s fundamental values in the center of the accession process, and established the possibility for accelerated and gradual integration of the (potential) candidate countries into different EU policies, institutions and funds. Concrete steps toward the application of these new possibilities were, however, lacking for a long time. In order to address this gap, numerous proposals from the think-tank community emerged over the course of past years with concrete suggestions on how the EU should progress on the issue of partial integration of candidates already in the pre-accession phase.

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[1] European Commission. “Enhancing the accession process.” https://neighbourhoodenlargement.ec.europa.eu/enhancing-accession-process-credible-eu-perspective-western-balkans_en.

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