Normalising double standards in the EU accession risks the credibility of the merit-based process

Brussels – The breakthrough that allowed Ukraine and Moldova to informally open talks across all six negotiating clusters marks a small revolution in overcoming the veto abuses that have long affected EU enlargement policy. At the same time, it opens a worrying breach in the credibility of the ‘merit-based’ EU accession process, particularly when viewed from the perspective of candidates that have been left behind for many years.

“If informal tracks become normalised for more geopolitically favoured candidates, while formal blockages still exist for others, the EU will effectively have created a two-tier enlargement system in practice,” warns Filipa Cvetanova, MSc candidate at Leiden University and junior policy researcher, speaking with The New Union Post about the risks of applying flexibility to some candidates while maintaining rigid rules for others, namely those in the Western Balkans.

Drawing on her analysis of the contradictions in the EU enlargement process when such differences persist, Cvetanova notes that the “preferential treatment” reserved for Kyiv and Chişinău “undermines this merit-based framework.” Not that the two new candidates do not deserve support, she adds, but it demonstrates that “strategic value has always influenced the pace and treatment of candidates.”

The start of informal negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova – while politically understandable and broadly supported as a way to overcome Viktor Orbán‘s obstruction – “makes it difficult to continue pretending otherwise,” she says. What the EU can no longer do is claim to run a merit-based process while acting primarily on strategic logic and geopolitical urgency. “Some countries are already paying the price of this gap.”

A differentiated treatment in the EU accession process

What happened on 17 March was “frontloading in practice,” referring to an expression that describes the approach of effectively separating technical convergence from political unanimity. This represents a significant institutional workaround compared with the approach seen over the past decade of the EU accession process.

What triggered this shift was the political reality in Eastern Europe following Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. For this reason, such a decision in Brussels should be seen as “more geopolitical exceptionalism rather than something that can be easily replicated” for other candidates.

If we look at North Macedonia‘s case – another candidate stuck in the accession process – the same scheme can no longer be applied. The main difference is that Ukraine and Moldova “have not accepted any negotiating framework designed to appease Hungary,” Cvetanova stresses. By contrast, North Macedonia “is bound by a framework that is the product of the Bulgarian veto,” requiring constitutional changes “that are domestically very unpopular.”

Even if the EU wanted to extend this new, more creative approach to North Macedonia – which does not seem to be the case – “it would still operate within a framework already shaped by a bilateral dispute that delegitimises the entire negotiation process.”

Another crucial consideration concerns the fact that the EU’s willingness to find now such workarounds “makes it undeniable that these institutional tools have always existed.” What was missing for North Macedonia and Albania – when they were coupled in the EU accession process – was the political will to use them: “The absence of political will is, in itself, an EU policy choice,” Cvetanova notes.

All of this is “a devastating admission” for a Union that presents itself as merit-based and rules-driven. Because not all vetoes carry the same weight.

The vetoes imposed in 2019 by France, the Netherlands and Denmark were mainly linked to the Copenhagen criteria and to concerns about the rule of law, corruption, criminal networks and democratic functioning in general. In a way, they were “more acceptable,” as they were directly linked to the accession framework and based on risks to the overall functioning of the EU.

By contrast, vetoes such as the Greek one related to the country’s name – resolved in 2018 – and the Bulgarian one on historical issues – though formally resolved with the 2022 so-called ‘French Proposal’ – present all the characteristics of “bilateral historical grievances allowed to masquerade as reform conditionalities.” Such an abuse of nationalist and identity-related vetoes “can corrupt the entire negotiation framework from within and destroy genuine reform incentives for a candidate country,” Cvetanova warns.

North Macedonia’s case is striking. Despite the “enormous domestic political sacrifice” of changing the country’s official name, another veto followed in 2020 over the negotiating framework. When the government in Skopje asked the EU institutions to guarantee that the accession path would not be blocked again if it proceeded with the constitutional changes demanded by Bulgaria in order to start accession negotiations, Brussels could not offer such a promise. However, “there cannot be irreversible political concessions without a guarantee of reward; otherwise a credible accession framework cannot function.”

The long-term risks for the EU’s credibility

For candidates like North Macedonia, the accession process “seems never-ending, and it has left some scars on public trust in the EU.” The credibility problem cannot be underestimated by institutions in Brussels, as “it is something that people genuinely feel.”

Back to the creative solutions for unblocking negotiations, if Ukraine and Moldova progress informally while North Macedonia remains frozen, candidates may begin to question whether EU membership is actually achievable. As Cvetanova points out, “trust deficits would weaken the EU’s ability to use enlargement as the transformative foreign policy tool it often claims it to be.”

It is clear that the geopolitical urgency is real, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped the entire security equation of European integration. At the same time, “procedural asymmetries have a price, and it is paid by candidates that have been waiting much longer, implementing significant reforms and receiving far less in return.”

If enlargement becomes stratified according to the geopolitical value a country can bring, several scenarios may follow.

First, governments in the Western Balkans may face “a domestic political problem” when asking citizens to absorb “painful” reforms while the determining factor for progress is whether the EU needs that country strategically. Second, this approach “could play into the hands of authoritarian actors and reinforce narratives of external actors meddling in domestic affairs,” as the credibility of the merit-based process would be eroded and incentives for reform weakened.

Finally, the EU’s reform conditionality in the accession process as a transformative tool may risk being compromised, “because it only works if candidates feel that their compliance is being rewarded.”

For all these reasons, according to Cvetanova, the EU institutions face a choice. Either they are “honest that enlargement has partly been a strategic instrument and restructure the framework accordingly,” including addressing the problem of veto abuse for all candidates, “not just those selectively prioritised.” Or, she concludes, they “genuinely commit to more consistent conditionality,” finding the political will to protect it “even when bilateral disputes arise.”