Disruptive Enlargement - Rhetorical Action of Illiberal Actors to Realise a Different Europe

The strategic agenda of the European Council 2024-2029 underscores the importance of enlargement as a “geostrategic investment in peace, security, stability and prosperity”. The EU needs to live up to the accession commitments to remain a credible actor in its immediate vicinity. Yet its ability to enlarge seems to diminish as the previously celebrated transformative power of the EU appears to be waning, not least because the liberal world order (LIO) based on rules and multilateral agreements, which for a long time has been the “substrate” on which the EU could flourish as a normative power, is challenged on many levels. In a world where the term “multi-polarity” is mainly employed to express objection to a “collective West” and its associated values, norms and rules, the question emerges concerning the future trajectory of the European integration project, particularly given that not all EU member states align with the same geopolitical stance. When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán calls for accelerating the accession of Serbia to stabilise the Western Balkans, he at the same time calls upon the EU to change and proposes to “take over Brussels” to establish a Europe which is less democratic, less rules-based, and deeply illiberal. This paper examines illiberal forces in the EU, their alliances within EU and candidate countries, and their framing of EU enlargement as a tactic to disrupt the liberal integration project. As “rhetorical actors” these illiberal actors strategically put forward “norm-based arguments” (Schimmelfennig 2001). They contest European norms by de-contextualising them, using them selectively (co-optation) or by de-coupling them from related liberal norms to establish a different understanding of the Community (and its normative standards), to which the candidates should be allowed. Proponents of enlargement thus no longer exclusively rely on liberal Community rules and norms (Leuffen et al. 2024). Instead, they advocate for an alternative normative framework they assert as representing "truly European" values (Bardella 2022). This disruptive approach to enlargement may gain momentum as arguments concerning the security of EU borders, geopolitical rivalry in the immediate neighbourhood and stability concerns become discursive nodal points (Diez 2005) allowing for a broader alignment of EU decision-makers behind arguments in favour of a more geopolitically-focused enlargement placing normative concerns of liberal community in a secondary position. The paper examines the rhetorical strategies of illiberal actors and highlights nodal points as the concept of enlargement shifts from a normative to a more geopolitical endeavour. It tackles questions from the workshop about enlargement theory in a contested liberal order, both within and outside the EU, and examines the changing meanings of EU enlargement policies in the current geopolitical and domestic context, highlighting the EU's transformation driven by actors who, while holding or seeking membership, align to disrupt the integration process as we know it. This discussion is informed by findings from the research project “(Il)liberal Contestation: The European Union as a Contested Liberal Actor in the Neighbourhood.”