Four countries hoping to join the European Union took steps forward in their membership quests on July 14, in the bloc’s biggest expansion push in more than 20 years.
“We have not seen this in more than two decades,” Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos told reporters. “The last time, it was in 2002. This is a Super Tuesday for EU enlargement and Ukraine is part of it.”
Ten countries, including eight former communist states as well as the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta, were granted admission to the bloc following the Copenhagen Summit of 2002, eventually joining in 2004.
Croatia, the last country to be admitted into the world’s largest trading bloc, joined in 2013.
In 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would block any attempt at enlargement until the EU itself had undergone deep reforms, but geopolitical events, including the Russia–Ukraine war, may have made leaders more expansion-minded.
Leaders in Brussels have frequently referenced the growing influence of China and Russia while they have sought to encourage reform in the candidate nations, which have to fulfill strict criteria in order to be admitted.
All EU member states have to agree to admit a new country, and any member can use its veto to block an application. Unanimous agreement is required for each negotiating chapter to be opened, and then again for it to be closed.
Ukraine applied for membership in 2022, four days after its ongoing conflict with Russia escalated when Moscow launched a full-scale invasion.
Hungarian Opposition Ends
Former long-serving Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban maintained cordial relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and was considered an obstacle to the EU expansion project.Orban was strongly opposed to Ukraine joining the bloc, citing endemic corruption as well as its economic dependence as reasons why it did not meet the strict criteria.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he sees EU membership as a “security guarantee” for a stable future once the war ends. He would also like NATO membership for Ukraine, which Russia considers a red line, but the United States insists that that cannot happen, and other NATO members are also wary of it joining while fighting continues due to the clause of mutuality, which considers an attack on one member an attack on all.
Some European leaders have expressed fears that Putin could target them in coming years, particularly if Russia ultimately takes the territory it claims as its own from Ukraine.
“The case for Ukraine’s EU membership is very strong,” Kos said.
“The future security architecture of our continent is unimaginable without Ukraine. Ukrainians have turned their country into a military powerhouse with capabilities few other nations can match, especially with its rapidly evolving drone technologies.”
Joining the bloc has boosted trade and created jobs, most notably in the volatile Balkans region, where a series of wars in the 1990s tore apart the former socialist nation of Yugoslavia. The prospect of EU membership is a powerful driver for reforms demanded of candidate states, most of which are in the Balkans.
Strict Criteria
Candidate nations must complete negotiations across 35 different policy areas, known as chapters, covering topics including agriculture, taxation, energy, and trade. That process can take years.The two nations each opened a second cluster on July 14 focused on foreign relations, security, and defense, as well as trade policy, development cooperation, and humanitarian aid.
Albania’s meeting aimed to provisionally wrap up negotiating tracks on education and culture, science and research, and external relations.
Montenegro, a former Yugoslav state that hopes to join in 2028, was aiming to do the same in the areas of competition policy and customs rules.
9 Candidate States
Nine countries are officially candidates to join the EU: The former Yugoslav states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia; the former Soviet Union states of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine; Albania; and Turkey, which has 97 percent of its landmass in Asia.Accession talks for Turkey and Georgia are on hold due to concerns about democratic standards.
Kosovo, another former Yugoslav state, has also applied to join but has not been granted candidate status.
The EU began in the years following World War II, when leaders on the continent sought a way to make another major conflict between European powers less of a threat.
Following the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, the project expanded in 1957, when six founding countries signed the Treaties of Rome, creating the European Economic Community, known as the Common Market.
Over the following decades, membership grew, and common trade policies expanded into areas such as agriculture, the environment, and justice, and European institutions took on greater powers.
The Maastricht Treaty established the EU in 1993, marking a broader political and economic partnership that went considerably beyond a free trade area, introducing closer cooperation in foreign policy, citizenship rights, and the path toward the euro single currency.
The UK in 2020 became the only country to have ever left the EU following the Brexit vote of 2016.
