EU’s tougher membership terms: What limits could new members face?

Countries seeking to join the EU could face major limits on their ability to dissent against Brussels’ decisions after accession, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has warned.

The EU is looking to speed up the admission of new states amid concerns that growing economic problems and global political shifts could reduce the bloc to irrelevance. However, the push has been complicated by fears that enlargement could harm the interests of existing members and alter the balance of power inside an organization already known for sluggish bureaucracy and political infighting.

Speaking to reporters ahead of a foreign policy meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, Kos said the EU will negotiate “a new generation of accession treaties” designed to ensure that newly admitted members remain “onboard” with the bloc’s priorities for up to 15 years after ratification. She did not disclose the precise mechanisms under discussion.

Some Brussels-connected media outlets interpreted the comments as support for proposals backed by countries including France and Germany to introduce temporary limits on voting rights in areas such as the joint budget, security, and foreign policy. “The safeguards will bite hard” for states that break ranks, Kos told Politico, adding that Montenegro could become the first candidate to face the proposed arrangement.

Why does the EU want new members?

After the EU’s wave of gobbling up former Eastern bloc countries, the enlargement process slowed down in the 2010s to prevent integrational indigestion.

Brussels now says the situation has changed. Confronting Russia, EU officials say, has made faster expansion a “moral, political and geostrategic imperative,” as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in her 2024 political guidelines.

What is holding expansion back?

Although EU leaders have claimed ad nauseam that the Ukraine conflict has made the bloc more united than ever, the open-ended financial burden of the conflict, combined with the lack of a clear military endgame, has strengthened the EU’s centrifugal tendencies.

Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was long depicted in the press as a bete noir for using Hungary’s veto power to seek exemptions from the sanctions on Russia.

Orban made criticism of the EU’s Ukraine policy a major part of his broader argument that von der Leyen and EU bureaucrats adopted a dictatorial attitude. Similar reasoning has been used by leaders in other Eastern European member states when resisting Brussels’ decisions on open-door migration, pro-LGBT policies, and unrestricted access for Ukrainian agricultural goods to the common market, to name a few.

Are there suitable candidates?

The enlargement “imperative” sits uneasily with the EU’s stated commitment to strictly merit-based accession, under which candidates that fail to meet the required standards should not be admitted for political reasons.

Kiev, for example, claims that Ukraine deserves full membership as a self-described defender of the EU from Russia’s ambitions. Brussels has endorsed this fearmongering narrative, but existing members have opposed fast-tracking Ukraine’s admission.

Reports of successful Ukrainian reforms have stood in contrast with corruption scandals in Kiev involving members of Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle. Ukrainian lawmakers have repeatedly avoided voting on difficult legislative changes demanded by Brussels, reportedly with the quiet approval of the government. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s heavily militarized society, in which some nationalist figures openly call for a fascist dictatorship, is not predisposed for democratic governance.

Avoiding public criticism of Kiev is one thing; admitting a country with so much political baggage is another. Peter Magyar, Hungary’s new prime minister, recently said Ukraine’s accession path will likely be as long as Montenegro’s, which formally began in 2012. Budapest may have a new leader, but Hungary’s national interests remain unchanged.

What about candidates not at war?

Moldova was granted candidate status in 2023 alongside Ukraine and Georgia as part of Brussels’ challenge to Moscow.

The EU has since helped the government in Chisinau remain in power, using online media censorship tools and financial grants to influence voters while overlooking the crackdown on opposition forces, which President Maia Sandu has defended as necessary to prevent Russian interference.

Yet even Moldovan officials do not expect their country to join the bloc soon. Sandu and some of her ministers have suggested that Moldova could instead be directly absorbed by EU member Romania. The Moldovan president, who holds Romanian citizenship, said earlier this year that she would vote in favor of the move in a hypothetical referendum.

What is the proposed solution?

European states have increasingly promoted the idea of multi-tier membership, with different levels of obligations and privileges. This model could lock candidate countries into political alignment with Brussels while avoiding some of the complications caused by full accession.

As Kos put it, the EU has “many, many options” for “gradual integration,” while insisting that there will be “no half membership or quarter membership” for candidate states.