The European Union had long recognised enlargement as a geostrategic investment, and Russia’s act of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 brought back the imperative to widen the Union. However, the EU27 was brief when detailing how it planned to reconcile a transformative enlargement process with a more effective EU of 30+ members.
Like the two strands of the Union’s DNA, enlargement and internal EU reform were necessary and should have been considered together. But where did we stand in the process towards widening and deepening? What were the Union’s potential strategic enlargement and reform options? Which options should the EU27 have chosen, and how could they have been implemented in practice?
This hybrid Policy Dialogue started with a speech by Commissioner Marta Kos. Subsequently, the authors of the new EPC publication A Test of Times: Permachange through Enlargement and EU Reform presented and discussed the findings and recommendations of their study, which sought to inspire, promote and connect the debates on how to widen and deepen European integration in the coming year.
