1. Stronger Together? The securitisation and geopolitics of EU enlargement in public perceptions of candidate countries (Western Balkans, Eastern Neighbourhood)

Recently, there has been a shift in the EU’s stance on enlargement towards the geopolitical and securitisation logic and actorness accompanied by the growing academic debates on the reasons, rationales, and effects of such a turn. This paper aims to look at how the local perceptions and expectations in candidate countries are shaped by malign foreign influences and the geopolitisation of EU enlargement. As such, this article contributes to relevant academic debates by offering a perspective from the six candidate countries in the Western Balkans (WB6) and the Eastern Neighbourhood trio (EN3). Our research draws on both quantitative and qualitative data: public opinion polls conducted in these countries in 2021-2025 and focus group discussions and interviews carried out in the first half of 2025. In our empirical work we focus on local perceptions and public sentiments regarding the risks, uncertainties, and external influences, particularly of a malign nature, that these countries are facing in the security, political, and socio-economic areas. We argue that in all nine candidate countries under review the malign external influences are seen as coming if not exactly from within the region, then closely connected with it. As Russia is seen as the main malign external actor by the public and experts in the EN3, accompanied (and mimicked in many of its approaches) by Serbia in the case of the Western Balkans, such perception of closeness of the malign external influence is manifested and reflected upon differently in public perceptions in these countries, including expectations of the EU, of its role in resisting malign influences and boosting enlargement. We also reflect on the expectations from the EU accession and relevant EU policies in combating the challenges that the candidate countries are facing. While each candidate country presents a rather unique case, there are patterns and trends that transcend these regions and highlight the candidate countries’ responses to the external influences, particularly Russia’s, as well as their interactions with the EU enlargement process, external policies and toolkit. Thus, the comparative analysis of such perceptions and responses push further the conceptual frameworks of geopolitisation and securitisation of enlargement, and the wider theoretical debates regarding the EU integration.