European Council President António Costa endorsed a simplification of the EU’s rules on accepting new members, saying the bloc needs to “accelerate” its enlargement to show Western Balkan partners it is “serious” about turning their EU ambitions into a reality.
Speaking exclusively to Euronews from Tivat, Montenegro – where EU and Western Balkan leaders will huddle for talks Friday – Costa floated ways to simplify the current methodology, which has been described as burdensome and contributing to frustration in a region where some countries have been stuck in limbo for almost two decades.
“We currently need to vote (…) more than 40 times to deliver in all the process,” Costa told Euronews., adding that the EU could look to “reduce the moments when we take decisions to streamline” the process.
EU membership requires the unanimous approval of all member states at several stages of the process, giving EU governments the opportunity to wield their veto power.
North Macedonia’s EU bid has historically been torpedoed by repeated vetoes by Greece and Bulgaria over disputes related to constitutional matters and minority rights. Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán routinely used veto powers to block Ukraine from making any progress towards EU integration.
“I personally believe that we don’t need unanimity to open chapters and clusters. We just need unanimity to close chapters and clusters,” Costa explained, referring to the 33 so-called “chapters” of the accession process, which are organised under six thematic “clusters”. These must be complete before a candidate can join the Union.
Costa added that “bilateral issues” that could stall a country’s bid should be “addressed” between the countries in question, with support from the institutions, but not to their prejudice.
His comments come on the heels of a major breakthrough in Ukraine’s bid to jon the EU, after Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar lifted his country’s two-year long veto on Kyiv’s accession talks after striking a deal on the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, ending months of bitter standoff.
President Costa hailed the “new attitude of Hungary in the European Union” as “positive”.
He also floated the use of more “transitional periods” in candidate countries’ accession in order to make the process more efficient. For example, the EU currently phases in new members into aspects of its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), through which it financially supports European farmers.
“We learned from the previous enlargement process that we always adopted transitional clauses on policies like agriculture and freedom of movement,” Costa told Euronews on the eve of the EU-Western Balkans summit. “And now, because we are talking about a very challenging enlargement, perhaps we also need transitional clauses on institutional matters.”
While he didn’t specify how new members could be phased into the EU’s institutions, a recent proposal for Ukraine’s accession floated by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested withholding full voting rights from Kyiv as part of “associate EU membership” before becoming a fully-fledged member.
In a joint op-ped published in February, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić called for an accelerated integration without a veto right. In practice, it would mean EU membership without full powers, in exchange for having a seat at the table. Both Serbia and Albania are candidate countries.
Enlargement policy needs a ’new momentum’
President Costa will be joined by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, 22 EU leaders including France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz, as well as all six Western Balkan leaders in Tivat for talks later on Friday.
The Western Balkan leaders represent the five countries considered official candidates to join the bloc – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – as well as Kosovo, currently deemed a “potential candidate”.
The choice of venue is highly symbolic. Montenegro is considered the frontrunner of all EU candidate countries and widely tipped to become the 28th EU member state as early as next year, a prospect Costa described as “not impossible”.
It would mark a breakthrough in the EU’s enlargement drive, which had been stalled up until Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine injected a new sense of geopolitical urgency into the process. Montenegro is often seen as politically and symbolically important but manageable given its relatively small size.
Ahead of the summit, Paris and Berlin have co-authored anon-paper which calls for injecting “new momentum” into the EU’s enlargement by pairing down the rules and offering “additional incentives” for candidate countries to integrate gradually into the bloc.
“We aim at a new, process-oriented approach which cuts overformalized hurdles for intermediate steps and simplifies the current methodology,” the Franco-German non-paper, seen by Euronews, also says.
According to diplomatic sources, the pitch has been drafted with the Western Balkans and Moldova in mind, with no references to Ukraine.
Kyiv has been urging Brussels to find a way of fast-tracking its application, framing EU membership as a crucial post-war security guarantee in the absence of NATO membership.
The bloc is in talks on beefing up its little-known mutual defence clause, known as Article 42.7, that could provide Ukraine with a security shield against future aggression.
Officials in Brussels have been hammering out alternative plans to integrate Ukraine quicker, branded under a raft of names including membership-in-reverse, associate membership and membership-lite. None of them have received broad support.
President Costa nonetheless expressed optimism about Ukraine’s negotiations.
“I believe that it’s possible to open and at the same time close immediately several (of Ukraine’s) chapters,” he said, “because they have already done what they need to do to close the chapters.”
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