The Geopoliticisation of EU Enlargement from a Multi-level Perspective

Abstract

After more than a decade of enlargement fatigue, the widening of European integration has been reinvigorated in a volatile geopolitical environment shaped by intensifying global power competition and successive crises in the EU’s neighbourhood. EU enlargement, traditionally a merit-based process grounded in conditionality and norm diffusion, is undergoing a profound transformation. It is increasingly shaped by geopolitical considerations, reflected both in political discourses on enlargement and in decisions to expedite accession processes. This transformation unfolds across multiple levels of governance, both vertically and horizontally. This panel examines how EU enlargement is being geopoliticised and how this process reshapes the actors, practices, discourses, and justifications involved in enlargement. Geopoliticisation is understood here as a process through which enlargement is reframed in terms of geopolitical imperatives and security concerns, situated within broader dynamics of global instability. Rather than treating this development as uniform or purely top-down, the panel adopts a multi-level perspective to trace how geopolitical framings are articulated, operationalised, and contested across different levels of governance. By bringing together contributions examining actors across EU institutions, EU Member States, civil society, and informal movements, the panel illuminates how geopoliticisation unfolds throughout the enlargement process and shapes relations with candidate countries. The panel’s contributions address different facets of this process. One paper analyses debates in the European Parliament and a selected EU Member State’s national parliament, demonstrating how geopoliticised narratives are constructed and justified at both supranational and national parliamentary levels. Moving beyond institutional settings, another paper examines how geopolitical considerations shape EU engagement with informal social movements in enlargement countries, revealing how civil society—traditionally conceived as a normative space—becomes entangled in geopolitical calculations. A further contribution questions whether EU enlargement can still be understood as a primarily legal process under conditions of heightened security threats. Another paper explores the effects of geopoliticisation on the EU’s humanitarian policies, particularly in relation to the Eastern Neighbourhood. Finally, a conceptual paper proposes new ways of approaching enlargement by foregrounding informality and multi-level interactions. It argues that existing analytical frameworks insufficiently capture the complexity of enlargement amid intensified geopolitical competition and offers new tools for analysing how enlargement governance evolves across levels of decision-making. Taken together, the panel advances debates on the geopoliticisation of European integration and contributes to broader discussions on how European integration is reshaped in times of crisis.

Title	Details
Strategic Autonomy, Security, and EU Enlargement: Parliamentary Discourses in an Era of Geopolitical Change	View Paper Details
Between Silence and Selective Support: How Geopolitics Shapes EU Reactions to Informal Social Movements in Serbia (2019 vs. 2024–25)	View Paper Details
The Conceptualisation of Informal Dimensions of the EU Enlargement in an Era of Great Power Competition	View Paper Details
Geopolitical Changes as Accelerators for Enlargement? Analyzing the Ukrainian Candidacy for EU Membership	View Paper Details
Civil Society at the Crossroads of Geopolitics: EU Civil Society Engagement under the Geopolitical Turn	View Paper Details