In his recent speech at a meeting with Albanian diaspora in Milano, Italy, the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama did not hesitate at throwing shades at the European Union regarding the prospects of Albania joining the European Union. Rama attributed the lack of progress to the “slow Brussels bureaucracy” which is moving with “turtle-like steps”. The problem that Edi Rama pointed out was the “enlargement fatigue” of the European Union, a problem that has embroiled the European Union since its inception. Especially the decisions of EU leaders have reflected these sentiments over time. For example, Jean-Claude Juncker during his presidency of the European Commission made it perfectly clear that enlargement was not going to be his priority. Secondly, in November 2019, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron blocked the opening of accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia, stating that the European Union needed to reform itself before taking on new members. In this article, I aim to analyse the problem with “enlargement fatigue” and how this “fatigue” from the European Union will have dangerous implications regarding the well-being of democracies in the Western Balkans.

The “Enlargement fatigue”

The “Enlargement fatigue” of the European Union can be identified as the absence of the willingness of EU member states to acquire new members. This sentiment started to become prevalent during the “Big Bang” enlargements of 2004, which brought 10 new members from Central and Eastern Europe into the bloc. This event serves as a crucial reminder regarding the potential of the EU as a “transformative agent”. This enlargement brought forth a far-reaching transformation to the states that were concerned. Central and Eastern Europe became more “Europeanised” in the sense of how they thought and acted according to a strict agenda of rules and standards. Yet, this enlargement exposed at the same time the “internal” problems of the European Union regarding their capacity to absorb new members, defined by the European Commission as “whether the EU can take its new members at a given moment without jeopardizing the political and policy objectives established by the Treaties”. In this statement, we see that one of the costs that the EU took upon its shoulders were highly functional as Brussels started to worry more about institutional workings such as maintaining the ability to implement common policies.

Throughout the history of European construction, the enlargement of the EU has always been accompanied by a form of “deepening”. “Deepening” the European Union refers to the capacity of the Union to develop further its institutional workings after acquiring new members, which is not an easy task. Some examples of “deepening” the European Union include the Single European Act (1986), the Maastricht Treaty (1992) and the Lisbon Treaty (2009). The co-existence of “widening” and ‘deepening” has contributed to a significant extent at amplifying the “enlargement fatigue”, because in recent times, enlargement has contributed toward the slowing down of the “deepening” process, which has arguably contributed to fragmentation within the European Union. This fragmentation was reflected by the 2019 French veto towards opening accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia and recently with the creation of the European Political Community. The aim of the European Political Community as expressed by President Macron is to create a “dialogue forum” of states that have not yet joined the EU. Yet, there are worries regarding its true intentions as it may well serve towards slowing down the enlargement process by “parking” it for the time being.

The “enlargement fatigue” has contributed towards enlargement resistance within the Union itself, but at the same time, enlargement seems to be hindered by the inability, and to a certain extent, unwillingness of aspiring members to abide with the conditionalities set forth by the EU. Unfortunately, this level of unwillingness is being reflected by the current political climate in the Western Balkans. Since the Thessaloniki Summit of 2003, the EU has affirmed for two decades the long-standing “European perspective”, yet after 20 years, this perspective is at a serious risk of running out of credibility, which will affect the attractiveness of the European project. The main reason is that even after 20 years, the region is suffering from serious grievances that have remained after the Yugoslav Wars. For example, the institutional arrangement in Bosnia and Herzegovina following the Dayton Accords (1995) has not delivered on its promise because there is an inability to reach cross-entity agreement on areas that are relevant to European integration. Similarly, Kosovo’s chances of integrating into EU institutions are unfortunately very slim because its accession in the EU is correlated with the normalization process with Serbia where, unfortunately, there is little domestic consensus. Moreover, the fact that there are still 5 EU members that do not recognize Kosovo does not help either.

Democratic Backsliding in the Balkans

The effects of democratic backsliding in the Balkans can conveniently be exemplified by using Serbia as an illustration, since it is the country which is higher up in the ladder of enlargement than the rest of the region. After the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, youth in Serbia were motivated to accept the European perspective thanks to the charismatic figure of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjicc, who offered Europe as a way out of the pariah status that Serbia found itself at. At the time of Djindjicc, support for EU membership was 72% (Wunsch, 2007) falling drastically to 53% in 2022 (Macek, 2022) and 40% in the latest polls. Despite the progress that Serbia achieved in terms of democratization and the liberalization of the economy, the enlargement process has stalled due to at least two reasons. First is the Sisyphean normalization process with Kosovo and the backsliding in the rule of law field. In 2019, there were mass protests in Belgrade denouncing the issues of corruption and fair elections. More recently, there were two episodes that damaged Serbia’s standing in the EU; one being the September 2023 attack by Serbian armed men against the Kosovo police in Banjska in the north of Kosovo, to which elements close to Vucic like Milan Radojicic have accepted culpability; in December 2023, there were massive protests following the suspected rigged local elections in Belgrade. These situations pose a dangerous threat to the future of European integration because even after 10 years of negotiations between Serbia and the EU, the incentives of European integration have not been significant enough to counteract democratic backsliding, which consequently sends a negative message to the youth not only in Serbia, but in the Western Balkans as a whole, as they see that the European “carrot and stick” approach is not working to prevent the tide of democratic illiberalism in a potential member state. The longer the accession negotiations between Serbia and the EU remain at a standstill, there is a serious risk that the citizens might turn further away from the EU as well.

Conclusion

To conclude, the EU enlargement fatigue is quite present, which is reflected by internal debate in Brussels regarding how to “deepen” the European Union. Unfortunately, the enlargement fatigue has contributed negatively to the pace of the process as it has been 20 years since the affirmation of the “European perspective” in Thessaloniki and yet only Croatia has been successful at integrating in the EU. This is not to say that Brussels is all to blame; even the local governments should be held accountable regarding their pace at implementing the required reforms to integrate the European project. Yet, the EU should understand that in a situation of non-enlargement, the costs outweigh the benefits, as they see the interference of third parties like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia in the Balkans which arguably challenge the influence of the EU in the region. So, if EU leaders think that enlargement is too big of a cost to bear, then they should thoroughly examine the cost of non-enlargement. Lastly, even though meaningful efforts at integration should be required from the candidate countries in the Western Balkans, the EU should at the same time assume its part in the process by constantly sending out clear messages accompanied by concrete actions and dates that ensure our place in the EU.