The headline is 15 years of post-accession safeguards for new Member States. But that is only one part of a larger design. Taken together, the proposals would change both the road to membership and the first years inside the Union.
1.Fifteen years of safeguards after accession
For future members, the Commission proposes a new safeguard lasting 15 years after accession. In serious cases of democratic or rule-of-law backsliding, measures could include suspension of a new Member State’s voting rights in the Council.
This is not Article 7. It is an additional, accession-specific mechanism designed to be considerably easier to activate.
In simple terms, under Article 7 the EU must build an extraordinary political consensus to act.
Under the proposed safeguard, a qualified majority would be needed to stop the action.
That is a significant transfer of leverage.
The Commission needs enlargement to deliver results. But it cannot admit new members on its own. Every accession still requires the agreement of all Member States. And we should acknowledge a political reality: each new accession is likely to face more, not less, resistance inside the EU.
Seen from that perspective, the 15-year safeguard is also a political insurance policy for the Member States that will ultimately have to say “yes”.
But it raises an obvious question: Does the EU not already have considerable insurance before a country joins?
For today’s candidates, conditionality has been built into the process since the Stabilisation and Association Process, long before the current accession negotiations. It was subsequently reinforced through the accession framework and, most clearly, through the 2020 revised methodology, which put the Fundamentals , rule of law, justice freedom, security etc at the centre of negotiations. The cluster opens first and closes last, remains under scrutiny throughout the negotiations, and progress on it determines the overall pace of accession. Serious stagnation or backsliding can slow or even reverse the process. and introduced stronger reversibility in cases of serious stagnation or backsliding.
So today’s candidates are already negotiating under a considerably tougher system than previous enlargement rounds.
The new proposal would add another layer: 15 years of differentiated safeguards after they have already passed that tougher pre-accession test.
That is the point worth debating.
2.More Europe before membership
I know this idea well. For years at the RCC, we worked on a simple proposition: the Western Balkans should not have to wait for membership to begin experiencing its benefits.
Roam like at home, SEPA, Green Lanes, and recognition of professional qualifications are results of that.
The Commission wants gradual integration to become more systematic, with annual integration dialogues, dedicated funding and earlier participation in selected EU policies and parts of the Single Market when candidates meet the conditions. More than welcomed
3.Fewer vetoes along the way
The third proposal addresses one of enlargement’s persistent weaknesses: unanimity allows bilateral disputes to become European vetoes.
The Commission proposes greater use of qualified-majority voting for opening negotiating clusters and certain intermediate decisions. Final accession would remain unanimous.
There is another significant idea: new Member States could commit, for a defined period, not to block future enlargements because of bilateral disputes.
North Macedonia hardly needs an explanation of why this matters. It applied in 2004 and has spent much of the period since then waiting not only because of reforms, but because bilateral disputes repeatedly entered the accession process.
Reducing those veto points would make the claim that enlargement is “merit based” considerably more credible. There is nothing wrong with the EU strengthening its enlargement policy as it learns from previous accessions. But candidates that spend years adapting to increasingly demanding conditions are also entitled to predictability about the rules under which they will eventually join.
A candidate can reasonably be expected to meet demanding conditions on democracy, judicial independence, corruption and institutional capacity.
It can also reasonably ask what membership it is actually negotiating for.
Can a process remain genuinely merit-based if its rules continue to change while candidates are negotiating?
If Article 7 is considered too difficult to use, why create an easier mechanism only for future members instead of strengthening enforcement for all Member States?
Why 15 years?
If the same democratic backsliding happens in year 14 and year 16, why should the Union have different powers to respond?
And if an old Member State and a new Member State commit exactly the same breach of Article 2, should they face different procedures?
If they pass that test and become members, at what point does conditionality end and equal membership begin?
Or, more simply:
When does a new Member State stop being new?
