Geopolitical Enlargement

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, enlargement has moved back to the top of the European Union’s policy agenda. At the same time, it appears to changing from a transformative “Europeanisation” logic to a security-driven geopolitical logic. The chapter asks how can we understand geopolitical enlargement, and how it differs from the conventional transformative model. Has enlargement become more geopolitical, indeed, and why? Which are the specific challenges and trade-offs that the EU faces in its enlargement policy? And, finally, how can geopolitical enlargement be implemented despite these challenges? I argue that recent enlargement decisions have followed a geopolitical rationale, indeed. However, rather than shifting completely to a geopolitical logic of enlargement, the EU has merely added a geopolitical layer on top of an official enlargement strategy that remains obliged to its transformative approach. This layering creates difficult trade-offs for the EU. To mitigate these trade-offs and maximise the geopolitical potential of enlargement, I suggest that fast-track legal membership combined with extensive institutional and policy differentiation is the most appropriate strategy.