Expert Comment — Europe Programme
18 February 2026
The European Union’s decision to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova in December 2024 marked a historic turning point in the history of European integration. For the first time since the Eastern enlargement of 2004-2007, the EU has made a credible commitment to expanding eastward. But the path from candidate status to full membership is long, uncertain and fraught with political, economic and institutional obstacles. The question facing the Union in 2026 is not whether enlargement will happen, but whether it can succeed without breaking the EU itself.
The Geopolitical Imperative
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fundamentally transformed the geopolitics of EU enlargement. Before the war, enlargement was a moribund project, with successive French and Dutch governments opposing further expansion and the Western Balkan candidates making little progress. After the invasion, the strategic case for enlargement became overwhelming: if the EU could not offer Ukraine and other Eastern European countries a credible path to membership, they would be left in a strategic grey zone that Moscow would inevitably seek to exploit.