EU next expansion: a tool of containment, democratic rebirth and competitive advantage against the new “Axis of upheaval”

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It has been 20 years since the EU biggest expansion, from 15 to 25 countries, in May 2004. Baltic states, five Central European countries and Malta with Cyprus entered the EU bringing the population from 380 million people to 460. The economy of the new countries went very well in the last twenty years, they did better than the old ones. Regarding populations, the integration with the people of Central/Eastern Europe has been beneficial in reinforcing the European identity, with the inclusion of some Slavic people at the core of the European continent. Finally, regarding politics, there has been also a reinforcement, apart from some going backward recently, in particular for Hungary and in less way Poland. This is why in 2018 the EU Parliament triggered the Art. 7 for Hungary on issues related to judicial independence and abuse of emergency power (the year before was done for Poland).

The new members that could enter soon should be first of all the countries of the Balkans, in the heart of Europe, who have been waiting for a long time. After that Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, got recent candidacy status. The only candidate that will have more difficulties in getting membership in the near-medium term of this decade is Turkey, also because the negotiations are frozen for some time. The expansion will benefit not only those new members but the EU as a whole, as every time the EU expands there are three goals it reaches: contain resurgent and revisionist powers, first of all Russia, from meddling in its periphery; has a democratic rebirth, given the desire of the new population to follow Western values; and increase its competitive advantage with the adding of a new country with its history, geography, population, and new competences.

We can see all these results in every candidate, from Moldova to Georgia, from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Ukraine. The crucial point though is to create a faster path, as we live in different times than in the last 20 years and the EU needs to realize that. It is not only because Europe is at war in its Eastern periphery, under a threat of a major war on all the continent, but because of the technological revolution, the climate change speeding up, the competition accelerating and the Western rivals coalescing in new alliances that some scholar define as “Axis of Upheaval ”.

In the Summer the EU will have the tenth election since the first EP elections in 1979, with the second largest democratic election in the world (after the one in India). Some forecast predicts a new majority with a center-right coalition could guide the next EU Parliament, given a shift to the right in many countries. Maybe the new coalition will have the European Peoples’s Party, together with the European Conservatives and Reformists group, which contains right MEPs from the Italian Brothers of Italy and Poland’s Law & Justice, as the Commission president Von der Leyen opened up to recently. The new center-right majority could work well in fighting against Russia, given its support for Ukraine; bring a new popular-patriotic and so democratic push (without going towards too much nationalism); and empower the nationalistic contribution of the new entries, raising its regional power in the competition among great powers.

We will see what will happen in June in this important election, much before the US one that will happen in November, where the US will have to decide if to continue with the international engagement of the Democrats or go towards a more isolationist approach with the Republicans. Also, the EU will be at a crossroads after the elections: either choose to speed up the access of new members, in particular the Balkans, towards a stronger Union and against Russian meddling. Or choose to sit and wait, but in that case, the alliance of its rivals will not do the same. This new coalition of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, is driven by a desire for chaos and disorder in the international system, to get an advantage for their expansionist goals, and so the EU needs to be up to the task of the substantial generational challenge it presents. While preventing the emergence of this new axis is already impossible, preventing it from overturning the existing system is a feasible objective. Let’s see if the EU and the US, together with their allies around the world, realize it and get to work.