EU enlargement by the end of the decade is essential, a commission led by German and French ministers has said.
The expert commission, led by the European affairs ministers of Germany and France, published a report last week arguing that EU enlargement was necessary for geopolitical reasons. It also suggested a number of far-reaching reforms to be completed before this can happen, such as scrapping unanimity in the Council, which would significantly weaken member states’ sovereignty, Euractiv reported on Tuesday, September 26th.
The report’s findings were also backed by an independent think tank, the Centre for European Studies (CEPS), which wrote in its study released on Tuesday that the EU must urgently integrate the Western Balkan countries that have been waiting for accession for over a decade in order to fend off “dangerous external influence and power play in the region.” The study named China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia as the biggest competitors.
The geopolitical reasons were the primary rationale for most German officials to support the 2030 enlargement deadline, but they also made it clear that Brussels’ internal dynamics need to go through significant change to accommodate the newcomers.
“The [European] status quo is not stable,” remarked Germany’s ruling socialist SPD’s European affairs spokesman Christian Petry after the government officially endorsed the Franco-German report on Monday, suggesting that EU membership would stabilize the neighboring countries. “2030 could be a year of enlargement,” he added, but only “if all sides implement necessary reforms.”
However, both CEPS and the German government believe that the 2030 deadline might be unrealistic “due to lack of political will in certain member states” within the bloc, “specifically some of those that push for a quick accession for Ukraine,” Petry said.
Central European member states, especially Poland, are indeed among the biggest supporters of EU expansion both toward the east and the south, but they are also the greatest opponents of further centralizing reforms, such as ending the unanimity requirement for major decisions in the Council.
For instance, the Franco-German report called for switching to qualified majority voting in fiscal and tax policy questions first and then gradually expanding the move to other policy areas, including security and migration—which is the ultimate redline for Poland and many others.
However, not even the German government is fully ready to give up more sovereignty to Brussels, as the liberal FDP spoke out against such reforms after they earned the endorsement of the coalition’s other two parties, the Social Democrats and Greens, saying that deeper integration would be “the wrong track” to follow.
Furthermore, the 2025 German elections could easily change Berlin’s perspective as well, since the SPD is now only third in the polls, suggesting the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) could return to power. The CDU has stressed multiple times before that it is dangerous to set a deadline for enlargement negotiations since it all comes down to whether the applicant country meets all the relevant criteria.
Nonetheless, Petry underlined that the odds for enlargement are still “as big as they haven’t been in years.”
The Franco-German proposal stays unofficial, of course, but will likely be debated during the European Council’s next informal talks starting on Wednesday.
