Is Enlargement Dead?

The consensus behind the enlargement of the European Union and NATO was crumbling. The strategic paradigm that guided enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe since the mid 1990s no longer fitted current circumstances. Absent a new narrative and a revised strategy, the historic window for enlarging core Western institutions to new democracies was likely to close.

To some degree, the West was of course a victim of its own success. The EU and NATO were also struggling with 'enlargement fatigue.' But it would be wrong to attribute the demise of enlargement consensus to these factors. The reasons for the current malaise ran deeper and required a change in policy. If enlargement was not to die, we needed a new narrative for why enlargement still mattered and a new strategy modified to fit current political and strategic realities.