EU Enlargement: Strategic Outlook and Challenges for 2025

While President Ursula von der Leyen’s mission letters for her new team of Commissioners underscored “EU enlargement as a geopolitical imperative,” the 2024 Enlargement Package took a low-key, business-as-usual approach. Arguably, the European Parliament’s hearing of the Commissioner-designate for Enlargement, Marta Kos, demonstrated a similar lack of resolve. These points raise the question of how important enlargement will be for the new European Commission in 2025 – a pivotal year in which global politics will be reshaped by another Donald Trump administration and the next EU budget will be negotiated.