intellinews.com<https://www.intellinews.com/us-could-join-rival-powers-undermining-eu-in-western-balkans-analyst-warns-418826/?source=serbia> US could join rival powers undermining EU in Western Balkans, analyst warns By bne IntelliNews January 7, 2026 6–8 minutes ________________________________ Under President Donald Trump, the United States could join rival powers such as China and Russia in undermining the European Union’s leverage in the Western Balkans and other regions in its near neighbourhood, warns a paper published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). America’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), it said, combines “a bitter and hostile critique of the EU and its policies” with backing for what the administration calls “healthy nations” – including volatile Western Balkan states – to strike their own deals with Brussels, says the paper, ‘The next ‘big bang’: How the EU can fast-track enlargement amid geopolitical tensions<https://ecfr.eu/article/the-next-big-bang-how-the-eu-can-fast-track-enlargement-amid-geopolitical-tensions/>’, by visiting fellow Vladimir Shopov. “By cultivating resistance towards the EU in this region, America would only deepen these states’ reluctance to align with EU laws and practices,” the paper said. It cited Montenegro’s decision to sign international agreements allowing non-competitive public procurement despite closing the relevant EU accession chapter, and Serbia’s free-trade deal with China in defiance of EU objections, as examples of how candidates are already hedging their bets. “During previous enlargement events, the US implemented support programmes which complemented EU accession,” the paper noted, “but this is unlikely to continue under the current US administration.” Geopolitics reshapes enlargement policy This comes in the context of a union that is already being pushed by war, great-power rivalry and economic coercion into a more overtly geopolitical posture that is transforming everything from defence policy to the way new members are admitted. What began under European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2019 as a broad ambition for a more “geopolitical commission” has turned into a far more concrete reorientation, the think-tank said, driven above all by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing pressure from the United States and China. “When Ursula von der Leyen talked of a ‘geopolitical commission’ in 2019, her intent was closer to direction of policy travel rather than an urgent and detailed plan aimed at creating a security union with complete defence capabilities,” the paper said. “But geopolitical imperatives are now driving the EU’s development, including in defence and securing economic leverage.” The EU’s 2020 Security Union strategy, initially designed to complement Nato, has since evolved into what the bloc calls a “2030 defence readiness” agenda, blending internal security with military preparedness. In parallel, Brussels has rolled out an economic security strategy aimed at reducing vulnerabilities and shielding the bloc from external pressure, including through tools such as the EU’s anti-coercion instrument. “Nowhere is the EU’s changing approach to geopolitics clearer than in enlargement,” the paper said, warning that the bloc risks diluting its long-standing rules for admitting new members as it rushes to lock in influence in its eastern neighbourhood. Fast-track accession? Russia’s war in Ukraine has put geopolitics “at the core of the negotiation process”, the report said, especially for Ukraine and Moldova, which both applied for EU membership in 2022. While accession talks typically last many years, ECFR noted that political discussions now include the possibility that Ukraine could be admitted by 2027 as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire arrangement. “The EU could extend a similar logic to Moldova, given the persistent risk of Russian encroachment and hybrid warfare,” it said. That would mark a sharp departure from the EU’s traditional emphasis on conditionality – the requirement that candidates fully adopt and implement EU laws and standards before joining. “While the 2027 timeline appears unrealistic for Moldova, political conversations about a contracted negotiation timeframe suggest the EU is shifting its approach,” the report said, “despite the difficulties in adopting, implementing and embedding EU norms and practices in that country.” The think-tank cautioned that accelerating enlargement for strategic reasons could undermine the EU’s own lessons from the past, when countries admitted in the 2004–2007 wave later struggled with issues such as judicial independence and corruption. A geopolitically driven expansion to include Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans would amount to another “big bang” enlargement, comparable to 2004 and 2007, and could provoke resistance among voters in existing member states, the report warned. It would also force the EU to confront its own decision-making rules. France and Germany are pushing to move from unanimity to majority voting in areas such as foreign and security policy, but doing so would require treaty changes that are hard to reconcile with a fast-tracked enlargement.
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