THE PRINCIPLE OF CONDITIONALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE NEW APPROACH TO EU ENLARGEMENT
THE PRINCIPLE OF CONDITIONALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE NEW APPROACH TO EU ENLARGEMENT

Summary/Abstract: The European integration project has evolved enormously over time and, with it, its enlargement policy, enlargement being often presented as one of the European Union's success stories. Although in accordance with the treaties on which it is founded (art. 49 TEU) the Union continues to be defined as a community open to European states, since its extension in 2004 and 2007 to the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe, the enlargement of the Union is a process that involves a number of conditionalities imposed on candidate countries in terms of the performance they must meet in order to join. The evolutionary nature of these conditionalities, culminating in the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for post-accession monitoring of Romania and Bulgaria, has been widely emphasized in the doctrine. At the same time, translating the constant tension between deepening and enlarging European integration, an additional requirement has emerged in recent years for the Union itself - that of its capacity to assimilate new members without jeopardizing the political objectives set out in the Treaties, thus strengthening the discretion of the Union and its Member States. A reflection of this orientation in enlargement policy is the fact that, after the 2004 and 2007 enlargements, only Croatia became a member of the Union (in 2013), for a number of other states (mainly in the Western Balkans) the prospect of accession being still quite insecure, despite promises of almost two decades ago. Faced with numerous criticisms that the lack of credible prospects for accession risks derailing reform efforts in the Western Balkans and eroding the Union's influence in the region, on 5 February 2020 the European Commission announced a 'new enlargement methodology', suggesting a new approach to accession negotiations, approved by Member States in March 2020. The paper aims to examine the evolution of enlargement conditionalities in the Commission's new approach and, at the same time, to assess some of the major implications of this new strategy.

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