BRUSSELS – In the most significant expansion of the European Union in over two decades, four candidate nations moved a major step closer to joining the 27-nation bloc Tuesday, when Brussels hosted a rare series of intergovernmental conferences to open and close key negotiating tracks. The milestone development comes amid sweeping shifts in European geopolitics triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, marking a sharp departure from expansion policy that was stalled for years.
The four nations advancing their bids are Albania, Montenegro, Moldova, and war-torn Ukraine. While Tuesday’s events represent historic progress, officials acknowledge full membership for any of the candidates remains at least several years away. EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos described the day as a “Super Tuesday for EU enlargement,” noting that the bloc has not pursued such a major expansion push since 2002, ahead of the 2004 wave that added 10 mostly Central European nations to the union. Croatia, the most recent country to join the world’s largest trading bloc, became a member in 2013.
Tuesday’s breakthrough reflects dramatic policy shifts driven by changing global and regional realities. As recently as 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron openly vowed to block any new enlargement until the EU implemented sweeping internal institutional reforms. But the outbreak of the largest land war on the continent since World War II, and its far-reaching geopolitical consequences, upended that calculation. Alarmed by growing aggressive influence from Russia and China across Europe, the bloc has reframed enlargement as a critical strategic and security investment, pushing forward talks to encourage democratic and economic reform in candidate states.
Ukraine’s progress in its accession bid is particularly remarkable: the country submitted its membership application just four days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. For Ukraine, joining the EU represents a key long-term security guarantee for a post-war stable future; the prospect of NATO membership, which Kyiv views as its ultimate security assurance, remains off the table amid wariness from Western leaders, including former U.S. President Donald Trump’s opposition.
European leaders widely view Russia’s war on Ukraine as an existential threat to the European order, warning that a Russian victory in Kyiv would leave other European nations vulnerable to future aggression from Moscow. “The case for Ukraine’s EU membership is very strong,” Kos emphasized. “The future security architecture of our continent is unimaginable without Ukraine. Ukrainians have turned their country into a military powerhouse with capabilities few other nations can match, especially with its rapidly evolving drone technologies.”
Moldova, like Ukraine, has faced persistent political and military pressure from Moscow, making EU integration a core national priority for its pro-Western government. For Balkan candidates including Albania and Montenegro, the prospect of EU membership has long served as a powerful catalyst for pro-democracy reform, economic growth, and regional stability after the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. History shows that joining the EU boosts cross-border trade and creates new jobs across member states, particularly in emerging economies in the Western Balkans.
To gain full membership, candidate countries must complete accession negotiations across 35 distinct policy areas, or “chapters,” ranging from agriculture and taxation to energy and trade. This rigorous process routinely takes years to complete. Just last month, Ukraine and Moldova opened negotiations on their first cluster of five chapters, focused on the foundational values of the EU: rule of law, protection of fundamental rights, and the functioning of democratic institutions. On Tuesday, the two nations opened a second cluster of chapters covering foreign policy, security and defense, trade, development cooperation, and humanitarian aid.
Albania, meanwhile, provisionally closed negotiating tracks on science and research, education and culture, and external relations. Montenegro, which has targeted 2028 for full accession, provisionally closed chapters on competition policy and customs regulations.
A major political shift cleared the way for Tuesday’s breakthrough: the electoral ousting of Hungary’s long-serving nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in April, after 16 years in power. Orbán, a close ally of Donald Trump and widely viewed as Moscow’s closest partner within the EU, had repeatedly blocked progress on Ukraine and Moldova’s accession bids using the bloc’s requirement that all 27 member states must unanimously approve the opening and closing of every negotiating chapter. With Orbán out of office, the main barrier to advancement was removed.
Currently, nine countries hold official EU candidate status: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Turkey. Accession talks for Georgia and Turkey remain frozen over widespread concerns about backsliding on democratic standards. Kosovo has submitted an application but has not yet been granted official candidate status.