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Enlargement

6. Challenges

The concept of the European Union’s absorption capacity was coined during June, 1993, Copenhagen summit: “The Union’s capacity to absorb new members, while maintaining the momentum of European integration, is an important consideration in the general interest of both the Union and the candidate countries.”

A more profound debate around EU’s absorption capacity started after the 2004 enlargement and was triggered by the prospects of further enlargements and the rejection of the draft Constitution by France and Netherlands in May 2005.

The European Union’s absorption capacity means its potential to continue deepening as it widens. It applies to whether the EU can take in new members at a certain moment, without compromising its own political and policy objectives.

Absorption capacity can best be understood as the capacity of the EU’s internal market, labour market, budget, eurozone and institutional system to absorb new member states; society’s capacity to absorb immigration; and the EU’s capacity for assuring its strategic security (Source: CEPS, No. 113, Sept. 2006, Just what is this ‘absorption capacity’ of the European Union?).

EU citizens – and some governments – were said to suffer from enlargement fatigue after the “big bang” enlargement of ten member states. In the European Commission’s view, member states should carry the main responsibility of communicating to their public that enlargement is in the EU’s interest.

In the countries engaged in the present enlargement agenda – the Western Balkans and Turkey - the pull of the EU is contributing to stability and encouraging important political and economic reforms. But also, the amount of reforms needed may become daunting to the candidate countries and trigger reform fatigue, even resentment of the EU and the integration process.

Furthermore, the countries and regions themselves still face a number of major challenges in their internal development. In the Western Balkans, Serbia's European course, state-building in Bosnia and Herzegovina, better governance in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro are high on the agenda, as is the stabilization of Kosovo’s future. In Turkey, pressing ahead with key reforms which are needed to consolidate fundamental rights and freedoms presents an ongoing challenge, as does the balancing between secularism and Islam.

Public support plays an essential part in the enlargement process – both in the current member states and in the candidate and potential candidate countries. The Commission emphasizes that it is crucial to maintain the visibility and credibility of their accession prospects, as well as rallying support for enlargement in the member states: A balance has to be found in the “consolidation of commitments, fair and rigorous conditionality and better communication with the public, combined with the EU's capacity to integrate new members”.

The pace at which a candidate or potential candidate approaches the EU reflects the pace of its political and economic reforms as well as its capacity to fully assume the rights and obligations of membership.

The Commission says it is working to improve the quality of the enlargement process by tackling public administration and judicial reform and the fight against corruption at an early stage, by making full use of benchmarks, and by bringing more transparency into the process.