Enlargement is a geopolitical superpower

But the EU must learn how to use it

For the EU, enlargement is a complicated topic. In the early days, it was seen as the natural course of things. Bringing together the democracies that stood on the Western side of the Iron Curtain could only be a source of strength. When the Cold War ended, there was also broad support for bringing in countries that had not been so fortunate as to escape the Soviet yoke. Joining East and West was a logical step on the road to European unity.

However, since the big bang of 2004, when eight Eastern European states joined the EU, the issue of enlargement has become much more sensitive. They were certainly not the last countries to join – Bulgaria and Romania entered the EU in 2007 and Croatia in 2013 – yet the pace of enlargement has slowed considerably relative to the number of countries that would still like to join. It is telling that although there are eight countries that are either candidates or already negotiating entry, no one has actually been able to get through the door in over a decade.

Part of the problem is that governments and publics inside the EU have taken on an increasingly one-sided view of enlargement. Too often it is understood as nothing more than act of generosity, something that is kindly offered to others who are seen as little better than charity cases. Even advocates of enlargement fall into this trap of arguing in favour simply because it is seen as the right or moral thing to do. Such arguments have their place, but they are not enough – especially when times are hard and people’s natural generosity does not extend so far.

However, enlargement can mean so much more and, when understood to its full extent, is a geopolitical superpower for the EU in its neighbourhood.

There is a battle of influence being played out across Eastern Europe between the EU and Russia. The EU has the great advantage that it can make the much more attractive offer. It presents freedom and prosperity, in contrast to dictatorship and entropy from Moscow. But Russia has the advantage in will to succeed. Through all means, covert and overt, military and civilian, Russia works hard to build networks of loyalty and dependency in the region, targeting individual leaders as well as economic structures, resorting to direct military assault when all else fails. Whether in Georgia, Ukraine or Serbia, through different methods and levels of intensity, Moscow consistently demonstrates that it wants it more.

This is by no means inevitable, but the EU will need to change. The EU must be ready to recognise that losing this battle for influence would have terrible long-term effects on its own security and well-being. Every country that aligns itself with Moscow or falls under its control is another boost to the power of a state that would love nothing more than to overturn the liberal democratic order in Europe.

To prevent that, enlargement and the lure of EU membership must not be treated as something to be reluctantly offered to those who persevere long enough but instead as an active policy to spread democracy and the EU’s values throughout the region.

Through enlargement, and even just the process that precedes it, the EU gains considerable influence in those countries. Laws are aligned to EU standards. European values around democracy and minority rights are mainstreamed. And a protective ring is formed where, to date, no one has considered war as a viable option.

Take into account, for a moment, the strategic benefits from integrating Ukraine’s military and fertile farmland, or Norway and Greenland’s Arctic territories, or having full access to Serbia’s lithium reserves. We are not talking here of soft ideals but hard-nosed self-interest. A bigger EU, with a larger population, larger economy, larger (and more experienced) military, larger reserves of metals and fuels, would be a more powerful and resilient EU, better equipped to stand up to Russia, China, or even the US.

The EU needs to replace today’s passive and reactive enlargement policy with one that is proactive and which gets ahead of events. How can it be that Georgia’s illegitimate government was allowed to set the narrative by calling time on negotiations to join the EU? Even before the election, the EU should have made it clear that a victory for the party promising to ban all the opposition would mean an instant cut-off to any aspirations to EU membership, let alone after said party obviously rigged the elections. Similarly, Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić has been given far too much leeway to pay lip service to the EU while courting Moscow. The EU must demand a reversal of the rapprochement with Russia and follow up with consequences if Serbia’s increasingly authoritarian government refuses.

There must also be benefits for those countries who do play by the rules. Today the EU’s approach to enlargement amounts too often to a series of broken promises. If overcoming internal political divides on enlargement remains a difficult task, it should not be so challenging to deliver more rapid benefits to those who have earned it. While there is sophisticated thinking going on around how to partially bring in countries to the Single Market, it is important not to wait for these solutions to be developed before acting. The EU is already too slow as a geopolitical actor as it is. Instead, the EU should immediately start using the tools it has to hand. If that means something so crude as throwing money into economic development projects, then so be it. A train station with an EU flag emblem on it is better than vague aspirations for the future.

For too long, when EU leaders have thought of enlargement, they have only thought of ‘what can we do for them’. It is time they started asking ‘what can they do for us’, and, those goals identified, pursue them with single-minded determination. Only then can Europe unlock the true potential of enlargement to help win the geopolitical contest.