Wider Europe

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two issues: Moldova’s and Ukraine’s next EU steps; and a deeper dive into the political views of Central and Eastern Europeans.

Brief #1: Moldova And Ukraine To Start EU Accession Talks. Or Are They?

What You Need To Know: Both Ukraine and Moldova are expected to formally open EU accession talks in the final week of June. Several diplomats that RFE/RL spoke to on condition of anonymity are confident that a “ceremonial intergovernmental conference” (IGC) will be held in Brussels with the pair just before Hungary takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on July 1.

They also said they expected the negotiation frameworks with both countries to be adopted by EU member states at the same time. You would be forgiven for thinking that talks with Ukraine and Moldova had already started, recalling that EU leaders in December 2023 green-lighted the kickoff of negotiations. That, however, was just a political opening shot in a long and arduous process of accepting new members to the club in which unanimity by the 27 current member states will be required at many stages. And it is a process that both politicians and the media are rather confused about.

Deep Background: Just take the question of what actually constitutes the start of EU accession talks with an EU candidate country. It’s complicated, as the answer might differ depending on who you ask. There are, in fact, three correct replies to that query. Some say it is when EU leaders say they give a green light; in other words, what happened for Ukraine and Moldova at the end of last year. Others in Brussels would argue it is when the first IGC takes place, which is what Kyiv and Chisinau are expecting at the end of next month.

But there are also officials in the EU capital who claim that the negotiations only start in earnest once the first of around 33 accession chapters (covering EU rules in everything from agriculture to foreign policy that candidates need to adopt) is officially opened. And this is not expected to happen for either Ukraine or Moldova in June, as the IGC is expected to be a “ceremonial” one and not what Brussels types refer to as “political IGCs,” in which chapters are opened or closed.

At best, this could happen sometime in 2025. And, as always, all EU member states must agree to such a move, which isn’t always a cakewalk. To illustrate this, take the examples of North Macedonia and Albania. In March 2020, EU leaders decided to open talks with that Western Balkans pair, and in July 2022 they had their respective ceremonial IGCs. But they haven’t actually opened and/or closed any chapters yet.

The main reason for this is bilateral issues with EU member states. North Macedonia needs to change its constitution to include language on Bulgarians as a founding people. Albania’s path remains blocked by Greece over a nearly yearlong spat over the imprisonment of an ethnic Greek mayor in the southern Albanian town of Himare.

So, Ukraine and Moldova would essentially move into the same “category” as Tirana and Skopje at the end of June: EU leaders have green-lighted the start of talks and ceremonial IGCs will have taken place, but the nitty-gritty matters of actually negotiating stuff in various policy fields are yet to take place.

Drilling Down

• Why does the EU conduct these “ceremonial IGCs,” then? In a sense, to encourage EU hopefuls. Montenegro, for example, had one in January. This despite the fact that it had previously both opened and closed chapters and is the most advanced of all EU candidate countries in this exercise. Brussels essentially wanted to give Podgorica “a tap on the shoulder,” indicating that the country is slowly heading in the right direction again after a few politically turbulent years.
• But the real reason is also to avoid vetoes. Hungary has made clear that it opposes Ukrainian EU membership for the moment. Budapest will reportedly be OK with lifting its veto in June for Ukraine (and by extension Moldova, as it is paired with Kyiv) because it knows full well that it doesn’t mean that negotiations chapters will be opened.
• It also means that Hungary doesn’t have to give Ukraine any “carrots” during its presidency in the second half of this year. I have also heard from sources in Brussels that Ukraine is being encouraged not to make too much of a fuss over the potential IGC in June -- mainly to avoid needlessly provoking Hungary.
• Budapest has on numerous occasions voiced worries about the rights of the Hungarian-speaking minority in Ukraine, and that’s still an open question. When the European Commission presented so-called “oral updates” to EU member states on the progress made by Ukraine and Moldova so far on necessary reforms, the European Commission found that Kyiv still had not completed all necessary legislative changes pertaining to laws related to national minorities.
• Several EU member states, however, believe that Ukraine has done its homework and that the European Commission’s assessment is colored by Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi, a Hungarian with close ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
• This discrepancy in interpretation has meant that there won’t be another European Commission assessment on Ukrainian progress (or lack thereof) in June, as it would provide Hungary with another opportunity to block. But it also means that Budapest can, of course, and probably will, use its veto further down the road if it isn’t satisfied with Kyiv’s reforms.
• And in June, Hungary will most likely also use its threat of a veto to “leverage” progress for some of its friends among candidate countries in the Western Balkans: Montenegro, and possibly Serbia.
• The former is set to close a few accession chapters in June, and it could be that Belgrade is likely to open some. Serbia has essentially stood still on its EU path for the last few years, as several EU member states have questioned its refusal to align with EU sanctions against Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• It could well be that the Russia hawks such as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have to lift their vetoes for Belgrade in order to secure an IGC for Ukraine. The Brussels horse-trading over enlargement decisions could, in other words, still be in full swing.

Brief #2: What Central And Eastern Europeans Think About NATO And The EU

What You Need To Know: On May 2, perhaps the foremost think tank in Central Europe, GlobSec, published its annual survey of political attitudes among seven Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU 20 years ago -- the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia -- as well as Bulgaria and Romania, which became members of the club in 2007. In other words, a club of nine former Warsaw Pact members or Soviet republics that now are anchored in Western institutions and organizations and playing an increasingly prominent role in them.

Titled Globsec Trends 2024 – A Brave New Region, the survey quizzed respondents in February/March about their attitudes to EU and NATO memberships of their home countries, the war in Ukraine, and relations with big powers, among other things.

Deep Background: Support for EU and NATO membership remains strong across the nine countries polled. On average, 78 percent of the respondents want their country to remain in the EU, a number similar to previous years; for NATO membership, the regional average is 81 percent -- a surge from 73 percent in 2021, likely triggered by the Russian invasion in nearby Ukraine and the appreciation of being part of a bigger military alliance.

Digging deeper into the numbers, some interesting things pop up. Only 71 percent of Czechs want to stay in the EU -- the lowest figure among the nine countries. No explanations are offered, but it might stem from Brussels-bashing ex-presidents like Vaclav Klaus and Milos Zeman or the enduring legacy of the right-wing Civic Democratic Party (ODS), for decades arguably the most influential party in the Czech Republic and a staunch member of the mildly Euroskeptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) political grouping in the European Parliament.

Interestingly, the highest level of support for EU membership is in Hungary with 86 percent (tied for first with Lithuania). An enigma perhaps, considering that Hungarians for over a decade have opted electorally for Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party, which are in a seemingly perpetual struggle against Brussels in many areas.

You also have Slovakia, in which 72 percent of people want to stay in the EU. That figure is still quite high, but when you consider that it was 93 percent when the country joined the bloc 20 years ago, that’s quite an alarming slide and possibly something that the recently returned left-wing populist Prime Minister Robert Fico has tapped into.

Or take Bulgaria, which is the only country of the nine in which respondents don’t believe that their country has a greater influence in global affairs thanks to its EU membership; on the contrary, a whopping 73 percent of Bulgarian respondents thinks Brussels dictates what to do without Sofia having the power to influence it.

Drilling Down

• Wading more deeply into the numbers, you’ll quickly notice that there is substantial evidence that Bulgaria and Slovakia, and to a certain extent Hungary, are proper outliers compared to the other six countries.
• Twenty-seven percent of Bulgarians and 24 percent of Slovaks still express a desire for their countries to leave NATO -- much higher than in the other countries -- potentially reflecting decades of anti-Western and even Russia-friendly sentiments.
• Forty-one percent of Slovaks see the United States as a threat, as do 33 percent of Bulgarians; some 44 of Slovaks and 32 percent of Bulgarians see “Western society and their way of living” as a threat.
• What about the Russia of today, then? Again, the opinion of the trio sticks out. Twenty-seven percent of Slovaks see Russia as a strategic partner, as do 23 percent of Bulgarians and 22 percent of Hungarians; however, the numbers in all three countries have decreased considerably compared to 2021, when it was close to half. By contrast, only 3 percent of Poles and 2 percent of Lithuanians see Russia in a similarly positive light.
• Thirty-four percent of Hungarians see China as a strategic partner, with Slovakia a distant second at 16 percent -- surely reflecting Budapest’s open courtship of Beijing in recent years. (Chinese President Xi is making Hungary one of his three stops this week on his first European trip in five years.)
• In seven out of the nine countries polled, Germany was seen as the most important strategic partner, probably reflecting the economic clout of Berlin in the region. Only in Poland and Romania was the United States considered a bigger partner -- which comes as no surprise considering general pro-American sentiments and considerable U.S. military presences in the two countries.
• Relations with Ukraine and opinions on the war there also reflect Bulgaria’s, Slovakia’s, and to a lesser extent Hungary’s alternative views. In the former two, fewer than half of the respondents viewed Russia as the main perpetrator of war. Thirty-four percent of Bulgarians instead thought that the West provoked Russia into conflict, and 31 percent of Slovaks were of the same opinion.
• Interestingly, in the entire region there is no country where the absolute majority of respondents envision Ukraine as a member of both the EU and NATO -- the stated geopolitical goal of Kyiv and something that is backed by most Ukrainians.
• Forty-nine percent of Latvians and Lithuanians think Ukraine should be members of both organizations. In Estonia, 48 percent backed this, as did 40 percent of Poles and Romanians.
• More worryingly for Ukraine, a full 57 percent of Hungarians think theirs should be a neutral country, as do 49 percent of Slovaks. Surprisingly, 36 percent of Czechs held the same view, with only 35 percent wanting it to be a member of both main Western alliances.
• Considering that the decisions to accept members to both the EU and NATO require unanimity, the relatively low support for Ukraine among some of its neighbors can spell problems for the country’s political future.

Looking Ahead

It’s a short week in Brussels, as institutions are closed on May 9-10 due to the Ascension holidays. But look out for the meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on May 8. They are expected to finally agree on sending the profits from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine and, for the first time, discuss another round of sanctions on Russia and Belarus.

That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X, formerly, Twitter, @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition subscribe here.

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two sanctions issues: How Georgia is gambling on its EU prospects; and the EU's "big bang enlargement" 20 years later.

Brief#1: The Georgian EU Gamble

What You Need To Know: The Georgian government is once again testing Brussels's patience by attempting to reintroduce a so-called foreign-agent law, with the first of three readings in parliament already successful.

Ruling Georgian Dream and its allies tried to adopt an almost identical bill last year but backed down after massive street protests and pressure from the West.

While this looks like a bid to consolidate and fire up Georgian Dream's electoral base ahead of October's parliamentary elections, the question is whether the party has cynically mastered the art of having its cake in its relationship with the EU and eating it, too.

Deep Background: There is arguably no better time to push through a foreign agent law, which requires civil-society organizations and media outlets that get foreign funding to not only report the fact to local authorities but also submit to oversight that could encompass sanctions for as-yet-undefined criminal offenses.

The European Parliamentary elections on June 6-9 will kick off an almighty backroom scramble for top jobs in Brussels that could last months. When Brussels isn't navel-gazing, much of its focus will be on aiding an ailing Ukraine in its war against Russia or seeking to prevent the entire Middle East from descending into war.

Sure, Brussels spoke out rather forcefully on Tbilisi's recent move: EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged "Georgia to refrain from adopting legislation that can compromise Georgia's EU path, a path supported by the overwhelming majority of Georgian citizens."

European Council President Charles Michel was even more blunt when he tweeted, "Let me be clear: the draft Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence is not consistent with Georgia's EU aspiration and its accession trajectory and will bring Georgia further away from the EU and not closer."

On April 25, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution that included unmistakable criticism directed at Tbilisi.

Drilling Down:

• Look more closely, however, and it's clear Brussels isn't totally focused. At the EU summit in Brussels earlier in April, the leaders of all 27 member states adopted conclusions on Ukraine and Turkey and spent most of their time haggling over how to make the bloc more competitive. Not a word on Georgia.
• When EU foreign ministers assembled in Luxembourg last week, Georgia wasn't on the agenda. Lithuania and Croatia raised it at the very end of the meeting under "any other business," but there were no real decisions.
• It may well be that a group of EU foreign ministers plans to travel soon to Tbilisi, or Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili might attend an upcoming EU foreign affairs council. But in the meantime, the European Parliament's resolution, while tough-sounding, is nonbinding on member states.
• I hear from Brussels that there are no potential sanctions on leading Georgian political figures in the pipeline, and neither is any sort of "midterm" assessment of how Georgia is faring on reforms needed to take the next step in its EU accession process (going from candidate status to open membership talks).
• The real enlargement report by the European Commission is due in late October, so there's plenty of time to reverse any decision in Tbilisi. Some of my Brussels sources expect someone in Tbilisi -- potentially even former Prime Minister and current Georgian Dream Honorary Chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili -- to water down or withdraw the bill altogether in an effort to appear statesmanlike.
• It's also clear the Georgian government is dividing its eggs among multiple baskets, not only the pro-Western one. It cannot be going unnoticed within Georgia's leadership that Russia is far from capitulating in Ukraine, and Brussels must recognize this as well.
• How else to interpret France's invitation to Russian representatives to mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings that helped end World War II, raising the specter of EU-sanctioned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov showing up?
• Or take the Ukraine-led so-called peace summit in Switzerland in mid-June. Kyiv is hoping more than 100 countries will be in attendance, including China. But from what I hear from Brussels, Beijing is mainly demanding that "peace plans" other than just Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's be discussed, potentially paving the way for some sort of Russian presence at the next such meeting.
• In a sense, Georgia's moves increasingly resemble those of another EU candidate country: Serbia. And Belgrade, despite its open praise of Moscow and refusal to align itself with Brussels' Russia sanctions, is still a front-runner among EU hopefuls.
• Granted, Serbia has neither opened nor closed any EU accession chapters in three years, but don't rule out that this could change in June if some EU member states demand Belgrade move forward a bit if there's a green light for the de facto start of enlargement talks with Ukraine and Moldova.
• Despite being generally "difficult" for Brussels on so many issues, Belgrade still gets lots of carrot and not much of a stick. It has so far escaped EU sanctions over last year's deadly attack by armed Serbs on Kosovar police officers in the village of Banjska in northern Kosovo. And when the EU recently approved a three-year, 6 billion-euro "growth plan" for the Western Balkans, Belgrade was made the single-largest recipient.
• Georgia may very well repeat the same trick. EU diplomats recently approved 30 billion euros for the country in nonlethal military aid via the so-called European Peace Facility (EPF) -- an off-budget vehicle the EU has mainly used to finance arms deliveries to Ukraine.
• As with Serbia, Georgia is counting on the help of a special friend inside the bloc: Hungary. Under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Budapest has leveraged green lights for Ukraine on various EU-related issues to help, for example, Bosnia-Herzegovina move ahead as well. And with Hungary occupying the six-month, rotating EU presidency starting in July, Budapest has made clear its priority to move EU enlargement forward -- and that very much includes positive steps for Tbilisi.

Brief#2: 20 Years After The EU's 'Big Bang' Expansion

What You Need To Know: This week the European Union will look back on its "big bang" enlargement of 2004. On May 1, 20 years ago, the then largely Western European club of 15 democracies underwent what was arguably its single largest transformation by adding 10 new members, 75 million more citizens, and nine additional official languages -- among many other things.

That enlargement was indeed special, as apart from the two southern island states of Cyprus and Malta, it extended EU membership to eight countries emerging from ex-Yugoslavia (Slovenia), the former Soviet Union (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), or the defunct Warsaw Pact (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia).

Three years later, Bulgaria and Romania joined the club, and in 2013 came the most recent addition, with Croatia formally acceding. With 2004, Europe was starting to "breathe with both its lungs again" -- a metaphor first used by Pope John Paul II to describe improved relations his Roman Catholic Church experienced with Eastern Christian Churches after the fall of communism in 1989 but which later became a catchphrase for a more politically united continent.

But amid all the celebrations, two major questions will inevitably will pop up: How well is the EU really breathing? And does the club have the lung capacity for more members, since there are 10 more states -- from the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, and indeed, Turkey -- that still aim to join?

Deep Background: Asking officials in Brussels from countries that joined the EU two decades ago how important membership was, my question was met with near incredulity. One highlighted the freedom of movement between most member states and the benefits this has brought to students, workers, and family members across the bloc. More poignantly, an official from one of the Baltic states remarked dryly that they would be where Ukraine or Moldova is now: either at war with Russia or under intense political pressure from the Kremlin.

Yet there is no debating that the 2004 enlargement ultimately proved challenging. Ferenc Laczo, an assistant professor of European history at Maastricht University, noted in a recent article that the "big bang" 20 years ago "changed the union more than West Europeans had expected but less than East Europeans had hoped."

He added that billions in capital moved west to east in search of skilled but cheaper labor, whereas people traveled in the opposite direction in pursuit of higher salaries and better quality of life.

This is true, but with some qualifications. Most older member states imposed restrictions, some lasting up to seven years, for workers from the freshly minted member states.

The United Kingdom was an exception, and accepted millions of newcomers. Speaking about it today, many officials in Brussels say this was a significant factor in the Brexit vote in 2016, when the slogan "Take back control" summed up general discontent, including over immigration of all sorts.

Drilling Down:

• The economics of the "big bang" are generally considered a success. Germany now imports more from Poland than France, and the Czech Republic might soon overtake Paris in that regard as well.
• Speaking in the European Parliament, Poland's prime minister at the time of accession, Leszek Miller, noted Poland's GDP has grown 40 percent since membership.
• In 2004, the average GDP per capita of the 15 old EU member states was around $20,000; for the 10 new members it was $9,000. That gap is still there, but it's narrowing.
• Not one of the 10 Central and Eastern European member states (so adding Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania to the mix) is a net contributor to the common EU budget, which is calculated by gross national income (GNI).
• In fact, all of them are still below the EU's average GDP, although the Czech Republic and Slovenia are close. Twenty of the poorest regions in the bloc are in the east, even if some regions around capitals like Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw are doing well.
• Then there is political development. Poland and Hungary are still under so-called Article 7 procedures, which can result in members losing their council voting rights due to fears over democratic backsliding and rule of law.
• While Poland might soon exit the Article 7 procedures, there are fears that Slovakia under its new populist government might take its place. There have previously been serious concerns about the political direction of Slovenia under the premiership of Janez Jansa, or about former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis's use of EU funds. Bulgaria and Romania just recently got partial (sea and air, but not land) Schengen membership despite fears over corruption and organized crime.
• The question now is whether the EU is ready for another enlargement or is still grappling with the idea of keeping the club intact. The six EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans have made scant progress in the last decade and serve as a sober reminder to Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine that EU members' desire to enlarge waxes and wanes.
• The ambitious idea by the outgoing president of the European Council, Charles Michel, for the bloc to be ready to take in new members by 2030 is no longer discussed much in the corridors of power in Brussels. Neither is the need for the EU to reform in order to enlarge, even though ideas continue to float around.
• With farmers in many of the countries bordering Ukraine incensed about the influx of cheap Ukrainian agri-products that they say undercuts their domestic markets (something that would be the norm if Ukraine were to join) it's clear that even eastern EU members have misgivings about further expansion.
• Polls have shown that support for Ukraine's EU membership remains strong, but recent research commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows such backing isn't overwhelming and support for Moldova and Montenegro joining isn't matched by similar enthusiasm for any of the other seven candidate countries.

Looking Ahead

On April 29-30, the bloc's European affairs ministers are assembling in Brussels to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 2004 enlargement. They will be joined by their counterparts from the current EU candidate countries and focus on how to ensure the rule of law in an expanded European Union.

On May 2, the European Commission is expected to present to EU member states its proposals for more sanctions on Belarus and Russia. Among other things, the EU is set to restrict Russian funding for NGOs inside the bloc, impose an import ban on stolen Ukraine cultural objects, and punish companies in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that facilitate the delivery of sanctioned goods to Russia.

That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on Twitter @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

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