THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
There is a way forward that addresses the concerns of all Member States
How to realise EU enlargement with the Balkans and Ukraine
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen receiving (from left to right): Petr Fiala, Czech Prime Minister, Edi Rama, Albanian Prime Minister, and Dimitar Kovačevski, Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Brussels, 19th July 2022
Interview with Gerald Knaus, Founding Chairman, European Stability Initiative (ESI), Berlin
The European: Gerald Knaus, we meet at a historic moment for the European project, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. You have worked on EU enlargement for decades, proposing ideas, from promoting visa-free travel for the Balkans and Moldova to including countries in the European Single Market. Now, on 17th June, the European Commission offered candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova and a membership perspective to Georgia. On 23rd June, EU and Western Balkan leaders met to discuss EU integration. On 24th June, the European Council granted Ukraine and Moldova candidate status. In mid-July, Albania and North Macedonia began accession negotiations in Brussels. Are things moving in the right direction? Gerald Knaus: I wish they were. It was very important to grant candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova. Not doing so would have sent a terrible message of EU indifference to Kyiv and Moscow. It was also high time to start accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia. But look closer, and you see that the key question, how to strengthen European democracies which are not yet members of the EU through integration, has not been addressed. Much of what we see resembles the villages Grigory Potemkin created for his mistress, the Russian Czar, on her trip to Ukraine: facades, with nothing behind them.
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photo: European Union, 2022; EC – Audiovisual Service/ Christophe Licoppe
The European: This is harsh. Do you indeed suggest that the EU’s response to Ukraine and Moldova is not embedded in a strategic vision, but is only an ad-hoc response? And that opening accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia is not enough to revive the Balkan enlargement process? Gerald Knaus: Tough times call for realism, not wishful thinking. Realists know that some EU countries agreed to offer Ukraine candidate status because they only see it as a symbol. They do not see Ukraine as a member of the EU. And the accession process with all six Balkan countries suffers from a similar, fatal flaw: it is not leading to any new members joining, now or in the future, because there is no agreement within the EU on admitting new members. We see that the accession process is a holding operation, feeding cynicism. We need something more realistic. The European: What is the essence of your “we need something more realistic”? What is the ESI proposal on the way forward that you published some weeks ago? Gerald Knaus: The EU has a vital interest in the stability and transformation of these democracies. Accession is the right vision for this. But in the short term it suffers from a fatal flaw: it is not supported by leaders and public opinion across the EU. The French president is open on this. In his view, the EU cannot accept many new members without deep internal reform.
