"Enlargement and accession as responses to the global political caesura of 1989/90 have made the EU the central organising power in Europe and increased its global political potential," writes Barbara Lippert in the article 'The Enlargement Policy of the European Union' in the Yearbook of European Integration 2003/2004. In their foreword, the editors of the yearbook, Werner Weidenfeld and Wolfgang Wessels, make a similar assessment of the EU accession of ten states in Eastern Central Europe: "The most ambitious peace project in the history of Europe is on the way to its successful completion."
Looking back on the major enlargement round in 2004, both differences and parallels to today's debate on a new eastward enlargement are apparent. In December 2023, the EU opened accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, and further negotiations are underway with Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia are candidates for accession, while negotiations with Turkey are currently frozen.
The EU is reacting to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine by revitalising its enlargement policy. In contrast to 2004, however, EU enlargement now appears to be a geopolitical necessity in order to maintain its global political potential and prevent the war from spreading. At the same time, doubts about the EU's ability to expand and its need for reform are dominating public debate.
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the eastward enlargement, the IEP is publishing the article 'The Enlargement Policy of the European Union' by Barbara Lippert in the Yearbook of European Integration 2004 as a chronicle of the history of European integration.
Furthermore, Barbara Lippert's article of the same name from 2023 is freely accessible for a limited time at this link in the Nomos eLibrary:
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