D 2.5 | Reforming EU Enlargement Governance and Advancing a Principled Gradual Integration: A Three-Track Decision-Making Model and Priority Accession Reforms

GEO-POWER-EU has released a new report (D2.5) titled “Reforming EU Enlargement Governance and Advancing a Principled Gradual Integration: A Three-Track Decision-Making Model and Priority Accession Reforms”. Drawing on 109 elite interviews, 20 focus groups and a survey of 9,011 citizens across nine (potential) candidate countries, the report sets out how the EU can create a credible, merit-based path to full membership.

The report identifies the Council’s use of unanimity at every step of accession talks as the main source of unpredictability, and proposes a three-track decision-making model that applies different voting rules to different clusters and chapters: reinforced QMV with an emergency brake for the Constitutional-Sovereignty Track, reinforced QMV for resources, agriculture and cohesion, and reversed QMV for regulatory alignment. It also proposes a gradual integration approach that links priority reforms in the rule of law, security and defence, economic convergence and the energy transition to tangible intermediate rewards, such as phased access to EU funds, early access to the single market and gradual defence integration.

Finally, the authors argue that membership should not come with reduced voting rights or a lesser status for new members. They propose a Principled Membership Framework based on full legal equality, temporary, time-limited and proportionate safeguards, and a separate track for Ukraine’s post-war security guarantees.