The Western Balkans Six (WB6) remain stuck in the waiting room of EU membership. Negotiations have slowed to a crawl, hobbled by enlargement fatigue in European capitals, immigration anxieties, and fears that new members would paralyse already cumbersome decision-making in the bloc. What the EU needs is a differentiated approach to enlargement – an approach that rewards genuine progress, penalises corruption and obstruction, and recognises integration as a political choice, not a bureaucratic ritual.
The current process traps the region in limbo. The EU’s “chapter” system, with its dense legal criteria, gives the impression of progress but in practice has turned accession into a farce of participation trophies. Leaders in the WB6 close chapters, attend summits, and issue communiqués – yet the horizon of full membership keeps receding.
The above excerpt was originally published in Euractiv.
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