210074 SE BAK11: European Union and Europeanisation (2023S)

For decades the EU-Enlargement has been one of the most successful policies of the EU. After the end of the call war the EU enlargement became a vehicle for full integration of countries of the previous Soviet bloc into the community of liberal and democratic states. For many countries in Eastern Europe the path towards the EU constituted one of the most important historical steps and stood for the promise of peace and security. The big enlargement rounds in 2004 and 2007 created a rather new European Union – the continent was partly reunited again, at the same time the complexity of decision making and institutional arrangements within the Union skyrocketed. Besides the Eastern European countries Turkey and large parts of Southeastern Europe (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania) remained outside of the EU. Particularly the countries of the Western Balkans got a strong promise of EU membership once all the reforms have been implemented. Yet, the last two decades have seen prevailing Enlargement fatigue within the EU as well as stalled reform and democratization processes in the EU candidate countries. Only Croatia managed to become full member in 2013 while all other countries stagnated. Some of the candidate countries like Serbia and Turkey experienced even a process of gradual autocratisation while at the same time – at least in the case of Serbia – negotiations with the EU were ongoing.

With the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine the cards in the game of EU Enlargement have been mixed anew. With the candidacy status granted to Ukraine and Moldova followed by the candidacy status for Bosnia and Herzegovina the overall dynamic of Enlargement started to change again. It became obvious that the Enlargement is again highly political and has returned on the top of the EU agenda. Yet, the old dilemmas remain – internal reform are still outstanding, many countries argue for deepening before enlarging while the populations are still skeptical about the process.

It is against this background that the seminar wants to explore foundaments of the Enlargement process and more importantly current challenges as well as potentials of the process.

The seminar will be highly interactive, featuring inputs by the lecturer, small groups assignments, inputs by guest experts, bilateral consultations and presentations of seminar papers in the class.