Civil Society Agency in EU Enlargement: The Case of Moldova’s Screening Process

In light of the revival of the enlargement process following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union (EU) has made a priority of “promoting citizen participation in social and political life in candidate countries” as well as strengthening cooperation and partnership between civil society organizations (CSOs) and public institutions (European Commission, 2025). Yet, the enlargement process remains primarily driven by national governments and the European Commission, with only limited opportunities for civil society to shape outcomes. Even when CSOs are included, through open consultations, bilateral meetings and other forms of engagement, the processes often remain opaque, lacking in transparency, and ultimately fail to produce a coherent and unified framework for participation (Bosse, 2025). As civil dialogues are mostly implemented through top-down procedures with no transparent criteria for selecting participating organizations, well-resourced international actors tend to be favored over local, grassroots organizations. This paper aims at foregrounding civil society by examining how it mobilized to exert agency and influence political debates. It focuses on the case study of Moldova and, particularly its screening process, which started in July 2024 and was successfully completed in September 2025. Civil society mobilization hereby refers to the diverse actions undertaken by non-governmental and non-business actors to leverage the EU accession process and shape local dynamics in the field of democracy and human rights during the screening process. These include direct engagement with EU institutions, participation in consultations, and advocacy through networks, to influence EU policy and sway the agenda-setting process in line with local needs. This paper utilizes the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to examine how civil society mobilized in response to the candidate status and whether this mobilization shaped agenda-setting and promoted priorities during the screening process. The ACF provides a structured lens to analyze how policy actors mobilize, form coalitions, and influence policy-making processes (Jenkins-Smith & Sabatier, 1999). This approach also emphasizes interactions between external incentives and domestic power, a key dynamic throughout the screening process. To effectively integrate local perspectives into the research, this paper will draw from desk research as well as interviews with Moldovan civil society representatives, EU officials, and experts. By offering an innovative, bottom-up perspective on EU enlargement, this paper challenges dominant institutional narratives and complements the often top-down and EU-centered scholarly debate. Drawing on CSOs’ best practices in the case of Moldova, it aims to shed light on effective EU-CSO engagement and successful strategies for leveraging the accession process. This study contributes to both the academic literature on enlargement and civil society engagement, and the practical understanding of inclusive, participatory approaches to EU policymaking.