19. Enlargement

This chapter examines the main phases of the European Union’s enlargement policy process—association, pre-accession, and accession—and the key decisions involved in each of these stages. It discusses how these decisions are made, and how policy practice has evolved over time. The chapter then explores enlargement as a tool of foreign policy and external governance. It discusses the development of the EU’s accession conditionality as an instrument to influence domestic change in candidate countries and why conditionality appears to have become less effective after the 2007 enlargement round, including the impact of the EU’s ‘enlargement fatigue’ and manifestations of ‘democratic backsliding’ among new member states.