EU Enlargement: Strategic Outlook and Challenges for 2025

While President Ursula von der Leyen’s mission letters for her new team of Commissioners underscored “EU enlargement as a geopolitical imperative,” the 2024 Enlargement Package took a low-key, business-as-usual approach. Arguably, the European Parliament’s hearing of the Commissioner-designate for Enlargement, Marta Kos, demonstrated a similar lack of resolve. These points raise the question of how important enlargement will be for the new European Commission in 2025 – a pivotal year in which global politics will be reshaped by another Donald Trump administration and the next EU budget will be negotiated. In this online event, the experts assess the state of the EU accession process with the countries of the Western Balkans. Part of our discussion is an update on the Growth Plan implementation, and the process of introducing ‘gradual integration.’

Moderator:
Frauke Seebass, Associate Fellow, Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, DGAP

First Comment:
Marta Szpala, Senior Fellow, Centre for Eastern Studies, Warsaw

Speakers:
Anna Lührmann, Minister of State for Europe and Climate, German Federal Foreign Office
Thomas Hagleitner, Head of Western Balkans Policy and Regional Strategy, DG NEAR, European Commission
Milan Nič, Senior Fellow in the Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, DGAP

Highlights:
00:00 Introduction (Seebass)
03:01 EU Enlargement (Lührmann)
12:36 Concrete strategies (Hagleitner)
22:40 Leadership (Nic)
32:13 Expectations (Szpala)
38:35 Q&A

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