EU seeks ways to make expansion more palatable to members

The European Commission on Tuesday published a document called "Preparing for a wider Union," which sought to lay out new proposals on "the policy orientations and actions needed to prepare the [European] Union for future enlargements ."

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that "Europe's future depends on the choices we make today," as she tries to encourage progress at the EU's leaders' summit this month and in other upcoming talks on the matter.

The EU's executive proposed an array of changes — including a gradual integration process for would-be members, new safeguards "to ensure that commitments undertaken during accession negotiations continue to be fulfiled steadily after accession," and changes to voting rules.

They were trying to strike a balance between simplifying the accession process, incentivizing candidate countries to continue to pursue it, and allaying concerns among existing members about potential risks or costs of expansion.

In the quarter century after the end of the Cold War, the EU rapidly grew from a union of 12 member states to 28, before dipping back down to 27 when the UK left following 2016's Brexit referendum.

But the process has ground to a halt ever since, with a series of candidate countries stuck in lengthy negotiations and little apparent appetite among members to continue to expand.

In recent years, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine and signs of the US vying for increased influence in parts of Europe, theoretical interest in expansion has picked up once more . But realizing the idea, with strict rules governing the accession process and the need for unanimous support among existing members for many core steps, has remained challenging.

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