EPIK has published my commentary on the European Commission's package "Preparing for a wider Union". It is the EU's first systemic answer to the question of its own readiness for enlargement: solid, but unfinished in places. One issue is conspicuous by its absence: reconstruction.
On 6 October the European Commission presents its Communication on preparing the EU for enlargement. The draft leaked by POLITICO shows accession turning into a cascade of gradual-integration decisions, with safeguards running for years after entry. What the document gets right, and four things that would make it stronger.
The European legislation that the Verkhovna Rada will later transpose almost word for word is written without Ukraine in the room. In the first text of the EPIK series on institutional integration, I propose four steps in the European Parliament that can be taken now, without changing the EU treaties. The price: 361 votes.
In Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union address, the most concrete commitments to Ukraine came in the security section, while enlargement received one sentence. Ukraine may end up integrating through defence faster than through the market. The roadmaps for candidates have not yet been written, so now is the time to push for steps from the EU side, above all on market access.
On 29 August, 52.8% of Icelanders said "no" to returning to negotiations on EU membership. I draw three conclusions: the EEA/EFTA model works, the next enlargement has lost a convenient political construction, and the EU's appeal for wealthy states has limits. Ukraine and the other candidates have to think even harder about how to sell enlargement inside the EU itself.