The functioning of democratic institutions represents one of the key prerequisites for a country to join the EU. This is emphasised by the fact that this area has been included in the fundamentals chapter in the revised enlargement methodology of…
This paper is an integral component of a broader initiative aimed at enhancing the Commission’s assessments within the “Functioning of Democratic Institutions” (FoDI) subarea. It builds upon prior work identifying the inconsistencies present in the Commission’s reporting on the Western…
The European Commission’s annual reports on the state of play of reforms within negotiating chapters, applicable to all (potential) candidates, play a pivotal role in evaluating their commitment to EU integration. Moreover, these reports serve as the basis for the…
The Template for Staged Accession to the EU was first published in the autumn of 2021, following the European Commission’s publication of the revised enlargement methodology and the persistently stagnating accession process of the Western Balkan countries. The necessity to…
This paper examines the impact of the Staged Accession model on the EU’s budget, with a focus on the Western Balkan (WB) countries. It reveals that the total cost of enlargement to the Western Balkans would amount to €35 billion…
The paper explores the potential for institutional participation of candidate countries in EU bodies during the pre-accession period, aiming to create a more gradual and merit-based approach to enlargement in line with the Staged accession model. The premise is that…
The road of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to the EU has been long. Although the country gained the European perspective in 2003, the country managed to submit its application for EU membership only in 2016. The EU Council accepted the…
