D 3.5 | Strategic Foresight

D 3.5 | Strategic Foresight

GEO-POWER-EU has released a new deliverable (D3.5) on how the regional order in the EU candidate-state neighbourhood could develop by 2031.

The report draws on a structured expert elicitation involving 45 specialists covering the six Western Balkan candidates as well as Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The eight macroscenarios range from continued EU-centred integration to more adverse forms of geopolitical fragmentation.

The report argues that EU economic and regulatory predominance does not automatically translate into political leverage or domestic reform. Market access, funding, infrastructure and regulatory alignment can deepen without equivalent political convergence, creating the risk of a durable form of association without transformation. At the same time, candidate states are not simply passive recipients of external influence: their governments and domestic actors retain constrained agency to align, resist, hedge between partners and exploit competition. The report therefore identifies enlargement credibility and European security capacity as two areas in which EU choices can materially shape the regional trajectory towards 2031.

📥 Download the full report (PDF).

*Featured image: POLITICO