The EU enlargement policy in the process of transformation
moving forward from declarative promises to strategic goals?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60054/PEU.2024.11.103-112Keywords:
EU enlargement, strategic goalsAbstract
The EU’s enlargement policy has reached the top of the EU’s political agenda within today’s turbulent geopolitical environment. Experts and academics, however, warn of the lack of clear perspective about its future implementation, so that the mistakes made during the previous enlargement round are not repeated. We aim to contribute to this effort by reconstructing the fundamental logic of the enlargement methodology through its practical manifestation in the EU’s official communications on enlargement. We apply a complex quantitative-qualitative analytical methodology to go beyond the official statements in the studied documents and reach a systematic structure of key characteristics. This knowledge will allow for some fundamental changes in the EU approach towards future enlargements, aiming at qualitatively different results in much more successful Europeanisation of the applicant countries.
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