Belgium’s Take on EU Big Bang Enlargement: More Europeans means More Europe
The year 2024 is to be marked as a historic year for the enlargement of the EU. Following the Russian war of aggression towards Ukraine, the question of the enlargement to the east certainly came back with all its strength and geopolitical salience. In June 2024 the European Council gave the green light for the start of the intergovernmental conferences with Candidate Countries Ukraine and Moldova. This event would be continuing the enlargement to the post-soviet space that started three decades ago in Copenhagen with its promises to the Central and Eastern Europe Member States to join the Union. That enlargement took place in May 2004, and for which also 2024 marks its twentieth anniversary.
The turning of this anniversary allows for a hop in the past to observe how citizens and decision makers were dealing with the forthcoming enlargement: what were the main concerns of the citizens, how would political elites respond to them, in turn how they dealt with them and what impact it had on founding or old Member States.
This paper was originally published by the European Commission’s REWEU project, who have given us permission to share the PDF below.
(Photo credit: Tom S. on Unsplash)