A quid pro quo approach to enlargement reform: streamlining accession while safeguarding the Union

Enlargement has once again become one of the most intensely discussed policies across the European continent. As the Union looks towards the possible accession of new members by 2030, officials are debating how to simplify procedures and avoid decision-making deadlocks,^[1] while also considering post-accession safeguards or temporary limitations to ensure that a larger Union remains functional.^[2] Although Hungary’s frequent use of the veto is often cited as the main trigger for these debates, it is important to note that other member states also view the reform process with caution. Meanwhile, some candidates have expressed reservations about any post-accession limitations or safeguards that would set them apart from conventional member states.

Against this backdrop, meaningful reform of enlargement policy, and its ultimate success, will depend on a forward-looking joint commitment between the EU and candidate countries. Rather than waiting for reluctant member states or candidates to ‘give in’ to peer pressure – whether to streamline enlargement or to accept post-accession specificities – this article outlines the following quid pro quo arrangement: the EU delivers simplification and predictability during the pre-accession period, while candidate countries accept transitional post-accession measures to safeguard the Union’s functionality.

The EU’s side of the commitment: marking enlargement work

The current enlargement policy still struggles to accommodate today’s geopolitical realities and the growing number of aspirants. To maintain both credibility and efficiency, the EU needs practical adjustments that can boost the accession process without requiring a treaty change. The following proposals outline how the Union could restore enlargement as a functional and credible policy for candidates.

1. Closing clusters instead of chapters

A practical way to streamline the accession process would be to start closing six thematic clusters rather than 35 individual chapters. When the revised enlargement methodology was introduced in 2020, it established that negotiations on each cluster would open as a whole rather than on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Such an approach has significantly simplified the decision-making process by reducing the number of Council decisions at the early stage of accession talks by about 80%. There is no reason why the same logic could not be applied at later stages as well. Although this would increase the political weight of each decision, the upside is that member states would need to agree only six times instead of 35.^[3] Revising the approach would not be a silver bullet, as vetoes would remain in place;^[4] it would nonetheless signal that the EU is serious about increasing the predictability of the process.^[5]

2. Reinforcing qualified majority voting

Although the debate on qualified majority voting (QMV) has resurfaced, a clear pathway toward its application in the enlargement process has been missing. Perhaps the EU needs to look beyond classical QMV; instead, a more balanced solution could be found in the lesser-known option of reinforced QMV. Unlike QMV, which requires 55% of member states representing at least 65% of the EU’s population, the reinforced one would require 65% of member states representing 72% of the EU population – raising the bar from roughly 15 to 21 states for a decision to be adopted. Opting for this approach would preserve member states’ sense of control to an extent, while preventing paralysis caused by a single veto.

3. Linking institutional participation to progress

Gradual integration, endorsed by the European Council in 2022, allows candidates to enjoy some membership benefits before accession. Thus far, however, the focus has been mostly on financial aspects such as grants or loans, as well as partial single market access. Yet the potential of gradual institutional participation remains largely unused. Linking progress on clusters and chapters to increased access to EU bodies would bridge the gap that currently exists between candidates and member states. The more a candidate advances, the more it should have opportunities to engage with EU institutions – and vice versa – allowing future members to ‘practice’ membership and strengthen preparedness before accession.^[6]

4. Establishing an accession calendar

Predictability is essential for credibility. The EU should formalise what it already does informally – support candidates’ internal timelines – by publishing an official Accession Calendar. Jointly prepared by the Commission and the Council, it would set indicative target dates for each candidate, regularly updated in the annual Enlargement Package and Council Conclusions. This would not guarantee membership for a fixed year but would create a shared roadmap, fostering accountability and coherence across institutions.

Candidates’ side of the commitment: safeguarding an enlarged Union

As the EU undertakes internal adjustments to make the process more workable, candidates would be expected to demonstrate their commitment by accepting post-accession transitional measures – designed to preserve the Union’s functionality and safeguard the application of accepted obligations and shared values. The logic behind these measures would be to increase the likelihood of successful enlargement even if the EU does not complete its own internal reforms in time, such as abandoning, or at least reducing, the use of the veto in the Council.

1. Introducing post-accession veto limitations

To ensure that the Union’s decision-making capacity is not hindered by enlargement, candidate countries could agree to temporary restrictions on their use of veto powers after accession.^[7] Depending on the outcome of political negotiations, these could cover all areas currently subject to unanimity or be limited to key fields such as foreign policy or further enlargements. Importantly, such limitations would not create second-tier membership as they would only apply for a predefined period (e.g. up to 10 years), while expiring automatically after it elapses. At the same time, a proposal of this kind would be accompanied by the so-called “emergency brake mechanism”, allowing candidates to protect their vital national interests. Such an arrangement would go a long way toward winning over those member states whose populations still hold a predominantly enlargement-sceptic view.

2. Embedding safeguard clauses

Building on existing precedents, safeguard clauses should be strengthened and systematically applied in all future accession treaties. Drawing on the Internal Market Safeguard Clause and the Justice and Home Affairs Safeguard Clause used in Croatia’s Accession Treaty, such provisions largely cover essential areas. Besides already being linked to justice, freedom and security (Chapter 24), public procurement (Chapter 5), economic criteria (a subarea of the Fundamental cluster), and four freedoms (Chapters 1-4), the clauses should be extended to cover rule-of-law and governance failures. If a new member were to undermine fair competition, judicial independence, or anti-corruption standards, these clauses should allow the Union to temporarily suspend access to funds, programmes, or specific cooperation mechanisms until compliance is restored. Moreover, extending the activation period from three (as referred to in prior Accession Acts) to ten years after accession would further enhance the EU’s capacity to respond to delayed backsliding.^[8]

3. Establishing a monitoring mechanism during the ratification period

Ending the accession talks should not mark the end of reform efforts but the beginning of their consolidation. The Monitoring Clause – introduced for the first time in Croatia’s Accession Treaty – enabled the Commission to closely monitor all commitments undertaken during the final phase of negotiations. Its strength lay in the fact that it fully covered the rule-of-law domain. Moreover, if issues of concern are identified, the Council, acting by qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission, would have the power to “take all appropriate measures”. The exact measures are never listed, which is something future accession treaties should correct.

4. Introducing a postponement clause

Recognising the risks of premature accession, the Postponement Clause – first appearing in the Accession Act of Bulgaria and Romania – allowed the EU to delay entry if there was a serious risk that an acceding country would be “manifestly unprepared” to meet membership criteria by the scheduled accession date. The mechanism placed the European Commission at the centre of monitoring, assessing compliance with judicial, anti-corruption, and governance reforms. If compliance fell short, the Council could, on a Commission recommendation, postpone accession “by one year”: acting unanimously as a general rule, or even by qualified majority in certain cases specified for Romania. Applied in future enlargements, such a clause would give the EU additional leverage to secure final reform commitments before accession.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the success of both pre-accession and post-accession reform debates will depend on whether the EU and candidate countries can meet halfway. By accepting transitional post-accession measures as a gesture of solidarity, candidates can help address legitimate concerns among current member states about decision-making paralysis or governance backsliding in an enlarged Union. In turn, such political reassurance would make it easier for the EU to simplify procedures, reduce veto points, and increase predictability for candidates. Such an approach would render the enlargement policy fit to deliver and ensure that the Union can function effectively even as its membership grows.

[1] In just a few months, several new ideas have surfaced in the debate on reforming the EU’s enlargement policy. In September, the media reported that Austria, Italy, Germany, and Slovenia jointly called for proposals to simplify and streamline the accession methodology, reflecting growing recognition that the current framework is too cumbersome. Soon after, European Council President António Costa revived the discussion on introducing Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) for the technical stages of enlargement, echoing the 2024 German-Slovenian non-paper. Together, these initiatives signal a renewed political appetite to modernise the process and reduce the role of unilateral vetoes in shaping the EU’s enlargement agenda.

[2] The debate, however, has not been limited to the pre-accession phase. What makes this period particularly notable is the concentration of proposals focused on the post-accession stage. It began with a POLITICO article suggesting that new members could face temporary limits on their veto rights upon joining the Union. Soon after, the Enlargement Commissioner confirmed that discussions were underway on a potential “probation period” with unprecedented restrictions, accompanied by robust rule of law safeguard clauses to deter and reduce the danger of post-accession backsliding. As one Commission official put it, the EU is entering an era of “new-generation accession treaties”.

[3] Such a shift would require that reforms and plans for closing individual chapters reflect the cluster structure, which may in turn mean either accepting later closure of certain chapters or accelerating work on others to ensure simultaneous closure.

[4] A potential criticism of this proposal is that it could risk de-dynamising the process, as a single member state’s veto might jeopardise the closure of chapters that are otherwise ready. This is a reasonable concern. However, the assumption here is that, by the time a cluster closure is feasible, the political cost of blocking an entire cluster would be substantially higher than that of objecting to an individual chapter. Accordingly, an act of cluster blockage would be an act of significant political escalation, one that member states would be far less likely to undertake except in cases of genuinely fundamental concern.

[5] Alternatively, moving toward closure at the cluster level could be understood as a political objective rather than a rigid rule. This would still allow the EU to navigate the final stages of accession talks with a candidate from a more structured, cluster-based perspective. It would also preserve the flexibility to withhold agreement on a specific chapter when a member state raises substantive concerns, without jeopardising the closure of other chapters within the same cluster.

[6] The proposal’s application entailed granting candidate countries the right to be invited to the Council’s working parties – once the Fundamentals Cluster is opened – in areas corresponding to the opened clusters. Participation would then evolve by inviting the candidates to COREPER and ministerial-level meetings – after receiving a positive Interim Benchmark Assessment Report (IBAR) for the Fundamentals Cluster – in areas covered by closed chapters. In this way, participation would be both gradual and merit-based, while also giving greater political weight to the act of opening a cluster or closing a chapter.

[7] The optimal outcome, of course, would be for the Union’s internal reforms to be implemented in a timely manner, rendering any form of veto limitation for the newcomers unnecessary. However, experience demonstrates that this is not a realistic expectation at present. It all comes down to avoiding a scenario in which a candidate has fulfilled all membership criteria, yet its Act of accession cannot be successfully ratified in all member states. Consider France, where ratification requires either a three-fifths majority in the French Parliament or approval through a referendum. This proposal, therefore, offers a mechanism designed to ease the concerns of those member states that fear the Union could become more dysfunctional as it admits new members. It would allow the EU to preserve its capacity to advance internal reforms without the risk of newly admitted states misusing their veto power. The proposal, therefore, represents a measure of last, but potentially necessary, resort.

[8] The 2025 Enlargement Package shows that the Commission is on the right track when it comes to the development of safeguard clauses. It explicitly states: “To ensure that new Member States continue to safeguard and maintain their track-record on the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights, the Commission considers that future Accession Treaties should contain stronger safeguards against backsliding on commitments made during the accession negotiations”.

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.