1. Introduction
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has placed European Union (EU) enlargement policy at the top of the EU agenda and unlocked a number of previously stalled processes. In June 2022, the EU agreed to formally open accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia after years of delay; granted EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova; awarded EU candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina in December 2022 in record time and opened accession talks in March 2024; approved EU visa liberalisation for Kosovo, and, in February 2023, facilitated the Ohrid Agreement in support of normalisation between Kosovo and Serbia.
However, the EU has faced criticism for its lack of proactive support for the Western Balkans’ quest for EU membership, with the accession process becoming increasingly technical (as in the Kosovo and Serbia dialogue), rather than being treated as a geopolitically strategic investment for the EU. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU appears to have re-evaluated its enlargement and neighbourhood policies in response to new security and geopolitical challenges. At the same time, the EU has unblocked several political processes related to accession negotiations with the Western Balkans,Footnote 1 in part to safeguard its geopolitical interests and counter Russia’s influence in the region. One such measure was the European Council’s adoption in 2022 of a new EU accession negotiations framework, the New Methodology for the Accession Negotiations, which formally initiated accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia and now applies to all EU candidate states.
This article deconstructs the new EU accession negotiation framework and analyses how it differs from the framework used for the Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU in the 2000s.Footnote 2 It analyses the extent to which the rule of law and EU fundamental rights have been mainstreamed across the acquis chapters (35 chapters grouped into six clusters) within the revised EU accession framework. It further investigates whether this institutional recalibration has been informed by the EU’s experience of democratic and rule of law backsliding in Poland and Hungary, and more recently in Slovakia, with the objective of preventing comparable outcomes in future EU member states. The analysis focuses on the Western Balkans as a case study, given that the EU has been negotiating with the region for more than a decade and is actively promoting enlargement to this region by the end of 2030.Footnote 3
The article uses the backsliding theory developed by Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman in their book Backsliding,Footnote 4 together with Laurent Pech and Kim Lane Scheppele’s article ‘Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Backsliding in the EU’Footnote 5 to assess the institutional and cultural conditions imposed on the EU candidate states to uphold the rule of law. The aim of this article is to analyse whether and how the ‘rule of law’ has expanded in the new EU enlargement policy; and the EU’s policy decision to include the Western Balkans in the annual EU Rule of Law Report mechanism, thereby tying future EU funds to the Western Balkans in a conditional payment system introduced in 2024.
Drawing on Haggard and Kaufman’s analysis of rule of law backsliding and Pech and Scheppele’s account of illiberalism within the EU, the article offers a conceptual examination of the theoretical framework for understanding rule of law erosion. The work of these authors will be used to explain some of the elements and conditions that contribute to the erosion of the rule of law and democratic standards, or the lack of the rule of law. Many of the Western Balkans countries are still classified as hybrid democracies by Freedom House,Footnote 6 with strongmen and elected autocratic leaders in power who have strong oversight of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, as well as the media.Footnote 7 Moreover, the Commission’s own assessment reveals that corruption is widespread, and several cases of state capture by political leaders with autocratic tendencies and organised crime make the state dysfunctional.
The article begins by evaluating the new EU accession framework and examining its changes, compared with the previous accession round involving Central and Eastern Europe during the 2020s. The section evaluates how this new framework has expanded engagement with the rule of law by incorporating a number of negotiating chapters into one cluster, and looks at whether this is in response to the decline of the rule of law in existing EU member states, using a comparison with Poland and Hungary. These two member states are extensively documented in EU case law and legal scholarship with regard to rule of law backsliding, and have structural and political similarities with the Western Balkans, lending themselves to a relevant case study.
A subsequent section will then conceptualise the new framework, based on the backsliding theory, and analyse the reasons behind the EU’s adoption of a number of new legal tools, such as making receipt of EU funds conditional on respecting the rule of law and monitoring EU candidate countries in an annual EU Rule of Law Report, to address shortcomings in this area. The article then presents several examples of the current state of the rule of law in the Western Balkans, along with tactics employed by some Balkan-region governments to impede reform. It examines the general undermining of the rule of law in the Western Balkans, similar to that occurring in Poland, Hungary and more recently Slovakia, seeking to explain how these examples might have influenced the EU’s decision to expand the rule of law criterion in future negotiations, leading to the development of stricter accession preconditions.
2. The new EU membership accession negotiations framework
In February 2020, the European Commission adopted a new EU membership framework entitled ‘New Methodology for the Accession Negotiations’Footnote 8 for the Western Balkans, revising the approach used for the Central and Eastern European countries joining in the 2000s.Footnote 9 The enlargement policy, and in particular the new accession talks framework, responded to the requests of some EU countries (primarily France, Denmark and the Netherlands), which had in the past openly expressed opposition to Union enlargement towards the Western Balkans.Footnote 10 They had shown dissatisfaction with the EU candidate countries’ achievements and track record – especially those related to the rule of law, and the fight against corruption and organised crime. Once candidate countries joined the EU, these dissatisfied states feared potential backsliding on fundamental EU values such as that experienced in Hungary, PolandFootnote 11 and more recently Slovakia.Footnote 12
The new enlargement methodology and framework are the outcome of a two-year political process, beginning with the decision to postpone negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania in 2018, even though both countries had met the main preconditions for starting accession talks (Albania’s precondition was to adopt judicial reform, unanimously passed in parliament in June 2016Footnote 13 with total compliance;Footnote 14 North MacedoniaFootnote 15 was required to change its name, which it did following a referendum in 2018.) In studying the new methodology document, the main discernible change is that the EU candidate country will no longer negotiate its accession into the EU based upon the 35 chapters of the acquis. These chapters have been reorganised and grouped into six main thematic clusters: (1) fundamentals; (2) internal market; (3) competitiveness and inclusive growth; (4) green agenda and sustainable connectivity; (5) resources, agriculture, and cohesion; and (6) external relations. Table 1 shows how the numbered chapters of the acquis have been grouped.
In June 2022, the European Council adopted conclusions as reported in Wider Europe: The Membership Applications of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and the Western Balkans, and provided additional details on the practical organisation of the negotiations under the new framework.Footnote 16 The Council suggested a gradual integration of the Western Balkans into the EU – which in practice meant that the Western Balkans could initially integrate into the EU single market as an interim goal, and subsequently become full members of the EU.Footnote 17 The Council assigned the Commission the task of exploring approaches to facilitate the gradual integration of the Western Balkans into the EU, taking into account the new methodology for accession negotiations aims and the requirement that EU candidate countries demonstrate a clear track record of meeting each of the six clusters’ conditions. In particular, those related to Cluster 1 on the fundamentals were highlighted – accession thereby being contingent on progress in upholding EU values, such as democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law. The EU Commission proposed ‘The Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans’ in 2023, and the European Council and the European Parliament approved this new instrument, allocating a package of €6 billion in 2024 to support EU-related reforms and economic growth in the region between 2024 and 2027.Footnote 18
The EU’s revised accession talks framework for EU candidate countriesFootnote 22
Table 1. Long description
A table showing the grouping of numbered chapters of the acquis into six main thematic clusters for EU candidate countries. The table has six columns and thirty-five rows. Each column represents a cluster: Cluster 1: Fundamentals, Cluster 2: Internal market, Cluster 3: Competitiveness and inclusive growth, Cluster 4: Green agenda and sustainable connectivity, Cluster 5: Resources agriculture and cohesion, and Cluster 6: External relations. Each row lists a numbered chapter of the acquis and its corresponding cluster. Row 1: Cluster 1: Fundamentals, 5: Public procurement. Row 2: Cluster 1: Fundamentals, 18: Statistics. Row 3: Cluster 1: Fundamentals, 23: Judiciary & fundamental rights. Row 4: Cluster 1: Fundamentals, 24: Justice, freedom & security. Row 5: Cluster 1: Fundamentals, 32: Financial control. Row 6: Cluster 1: Fundamentals, 34: Institutions. Row 7: Cluster 2: Internal market, 1: Free movement of goods. Row 8: Cluster 2: Internal market, 2: Freedom of movement for workers. Row 9: Cluster 2: Internal market, 3: Right of establishment & freedom to provide services. Row 10: Cluster 2: Internal market, 4: Free movement of capital. Row 11: Cluster 2: Internal market, 6: Company law. Row 12: Cluster 2: Internal market, 7: Intellectual property law. Row 13: Cluster 2: Internal market, 8: Competition policy. Row 14: Cluster 2: Internal market, 9: Financial services. Row 15: Cluster 2: Internal market, 28: Consumer & health protection. Row 16: Cluster 3: Competitiveness and inclusive growth, 10: Information society & media. Row 17: Cluster 3: Competitiveness and inclusive growth, 16: Taxation. Row 18: Cluster 3: Competitiveness and inclusive growth, 17: Economic & monetary policy. Row 19: Cluster 3: Competitiveness and inclusive growth, 19: Social policy & employment. Row 20: Cluster 3: Competitiveness and inclusive growth, 20: Enterprise & industrial policy. Row 21: Cluster 4: Green agenda and sustainable connectivity, 14: Transport policy. Row 22: Cluster 4: Green agenda and sustainable connectivity, 15: Energy. Row 23: Cluster 4: Green agenda and sustainable connectivity, 21: Trans-European networks. Row 24: Cluster 4: Green agenda and sustainable connectivity, 27: Environment & climate change. Row 25: Cluster 4: Green agenda and sustainable connectivity, 26: Education & culture. Row 26: Cluster 4: Green agenda and sustainable connectivity, 25: Science & research. Row 27: Cluster 5: Resources agriculture and cohesion, 11: Agriculture & rural development. Row 28: Cluster 5: Resources agriculture and cohesion, 12: Food safety, veterinary & phytosanitary policy. Row 29: Cluster 5: Resources agriculture and cohesion, 13: Fisheries. Row 30: Cluster 5: Resources agriculture and cohesion, 22: Regional policy & coordination of structural instruments. Row 31: Cluster 5: Resources agriculture and cohesion, 33: Financial & budgetary provisions. Row 32: Cluster 6: External relations, 30: External relations. Row 33: Cluster 6: External relations, 31: Foreign, security & defence policy. Row 34: Cluster 6: External relations, 35: Other issues.
The reform and growth facility for the Western Balkans is a performance-based financial assistance instrument – a system of conditional payments inspired by the ‘resilience and recovery facility’ that EU member states have been implementing since 2021, as part of post-pandemic recovery.Footnote 19 The reform and growth plans must be prepared in the form of ‘reform agendas’ by the Western Balkans governments, closely linked to meeting conditions set out in the six clusters, and thereafter approved by the EU. However, to secure the EU funds, EU candidate countries must demonstrate their ability to fulfil several prerequisites, including those associated with Cluster 1 on fundamentals, and Cluster 6 on external relations.Footnote 20 In other words, by adopting the reform and growth facility for the Western Balkans, the EU has ensured that any allocated EU funds must adhere to EU values – particularly the rule of law – and align with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, such as imposing sanctions against Russia.Footnote 21 This instrument allows the Commission and the Council to suspend any EU funds if Western Balkans countries violate or backslide on the rule of law, similar to the ‘resilience and recovery facility’ for EU member states. In 2024, the Commission included Albania,Footnote 23 Montenegro,Footnote 24 North MacedoniaFootnote 25 and SerbiaFootnote 26 in the annual EU Rule of Law Report mechanism.
This reflects the Commission’s approach to scrutinising EU candidate countries in meeting EU standards on the rule of law and upholding democratic standards.Footnote 27 The Union would seem to be arming itself with additional tools to block or suspend funds from going into EU candidate countries if there are signs of rule of law backsliding or EU fund mismanagement, and to reward those that demonstrate progress in fulfilling the EU membership acquis. The EU has suspended agricultural funds to Albania due to allegations of corruption and misuse involving approximately €33 million, as reported by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in 2024.Footnote 28 OLAF has advised the Commission to suspend €112 million in future funding, which is part of the pre-accession assistance for the Rural Development Package (IPARD), until Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime Structure (SPAK) has fully investigated and prosecuted those responsible.Footnote 29 The approach aims to encourage the Western Balkans to take greater ownership of the EU accession process. When such allegations of misuse or misconduct arise, national authorities and courts should assume responsibility for upholding the rule of law and tackling corruption. The goal is to change the accession process to one that starts from the ground up, allowing EU candidate countries to put forward specific plans for reforms that match the six-cluster acquis, and receive funding to carry out those reforms. Should these conditions remain unfulfilled, the suspension of candidates from accessing EU agricultural funds will persist, mirroring the current situation with Albania. In October 2024, for the first time following the Council’s positive opinion on its proposed agenda, the Commission approved some funds for Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia under the reform and growth facility for the Western Balkans.Footnote 30
The most novel feature of this reform and growth facility is that it will be strongly informed by a set of preconditions around basic democracy, rule of law and human rights protection requirements, and alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), ensuring better protection against misuse of EU funds. Numerous EU member states have shown clear evidence of democratic and rule of law regression, as well as non-compliance with the EU’s CFSP.Footnote 31 For example, in Hungary the European Commission suspended funds of nearly one billion euros in January 2025Footnote 32 for violations of the rule of law and failure to align with the EU’s CFSP.Footnote 33 In response to this trend, after introducing the annual EU Rule of Law Report mechanism in 2020Footnote 34 and the Recovery and Resilience facility in 2021, the EU adopted a conditional payment system,Footnote 35 intending to allocate funds primarily to the EU candidate countries that demonstrate a genuine commitment to EU membership and upholding the rule of law. This sends a strong message to candidates halting EU-membership-related reforms, or backsliding on the rule of law, as in the previous EU accession frameworkFootnote 36 – they will not receive EU funding. It also presents an opportunity for more reform-minded EU candidate countries to use these funds to enhance their capacity for gradual EU accession.
The new framework for accession talks has made the rule of law a cross-cutting theme across different chapters, and now also includes the linking of all financial support and other EU membership criteria to upholding the rule of law. This explains why the first cluster is termed ‘fundamentals’, primarily focused on establishing liberal democracies and the rule of law as part of the EU accession process.Footnote 37 It is clear that the EU is prioritising the rule of law and democratic standards to prevent any potential rule of law backsliding, and the message so far is that is willing to keep the Western Balkans as EU candidate states for as long as possible – until they can demonstrate a clear track record before joining the EU single marketFootnote 38 and then the Union, to ensure and minimise any risk of potential future backsliders.Footnote 39 This is in contrast to the prior framework, which Christopher Preston defines as primarily predicated on the adoption of the acquis Communautaire,Footnote 40 and which lacked any strict instrument based on the rule of law and alignment with the CFSP. Enlargement has historically been politically motivated and, in many cases, shaped by geopolitical factors. It appears the EU is gearing up for the next wave of enlargement, contemplating the accession of Ukraine as part of a potential final Ukraine–Russia peace agreement.Footnote 41
According to Kochenov, experience from the previous rounds of enlargement to include Hungary and Poland has shown that the mere adoption and acceptance of EU legislation does not guarantee that a country has made sustainable progress on the rule of law and democracy.Footnote 42 Furthermore, the 2024 Rule of Law Report by Civil Liberties,Footnote 43 a network of 37 non-governmental organisations in 19 countries, reveals that a number of EU member states are opposing the supremacy of EU law and the primacy jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This challenge stems from the rise of populism and far-right parties in the EU, which are becoming increasingly mainstream. As a result, the erosion of the rule of law is becoming systemic, as reported in the annual EU Rule of Law report. The CJEU is being required to adjudicate claims of violations of minority rights, women’s rights or LBTQ+ rights; Member States’ procedural and regulatory responses to corruption and misuse of EU funds; and, finally, claims as to the dismantling of judicial independence.Footnote 44
The latest EU member state to face allegations of such erosion is Slovakia, where in 2025 the Commission initiated infringement procedures for failure to comply with fundamental principles of Union law.Footnote 45 This action follows several measures implemented by the current government, led by Prime Minister Robert Fico, including the adoption and enactment of various policies and pieces of legislation that contravene the EU’s principles of the rule of law. Notably, one such measure permits police to enter homes without a court order, thereby undermining protections for minorities – especially the Roma community.Footnote 46 Furthermore, in December 2025, Slovakia enacted a law to abolish the Whistleblower Protection Office, making it nearly impossible to report corruption.Footnote 47 Furthermore, there are ongoing efforts to undermine or manipulate the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) and reorganise the National Crime Agency – actions that collectively threaten the rule of law. Therefore, even if the EU takes a number of pre-emptive measures vis-à-vis the EU candidate countries, a lasting impact is not always guaranteed, as in Slovakia after 1997, which at the time was viewed as a semi-authoritarian state.Footnote 48 Similar to some Western Balkans countries, Slovakia made several impressive reforms relating to the rule of law, addressing corruption at the highest level and ultimately joining the Union. However, since Robert Fico’s populist Smer-SSD party won the election in 2023, it has taken a number of steps that undermine the rule of law – as noted in the EU Rule of Law Report 2025 for Slovakia.Footnote 49 Bugarič observed that the legal and institutional changes in Central and Eastern European countries after the fall of communism, which aimed to establish liberal democracies and to ensure respect for the rule of law as part of the EU accession process, were ultimately undermined by a shifting social dynamic.Footnote 50 Several EU member states, including Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, are witnessing this phenomenon. Therefore, implementing a range of pre-emptive measures in the EU candidate countries in response to the current experience of rule of law backsliding in these post-communist EU member states could be useful in monitoring and promoting further strengthening of the rule of law. However, this approach cannot ensure long-term success, as social dynamics may change. For example, North Macedonia, an official EU candidate since 2005 that only began accession negotiations in July 2022, has experienced a decline in political will and public support for EU membership. Prolonged stalling and the continual imposition of new conditions that are mostly political, rather than technical, in terms of EU accession have led to growing disillusionment among the populace regarding the EU’s commitment to its membership aspirations.Footnote 51 As a result, the EU’s credibility and influence have been eroded to the point where only 40 per cent of citizens believe the EU is serious about enlargement.Footnote 52
3. Conceptualising the new EU enlargement and accession talks framework
For nearly a decade, the EU has faced backsliding of the rule of law and erosion of democratic standards, according to data extracted from important rule of law indices such as Freedom House, Variety of Democracy (V-Dem),Footnote 53 the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law IndexFootnote 54 and a number of NGOs and rule of law watchdogs such as the Civil Liberties Network.Footnote 55
Abuses of the rule of law and democratic values, for example, have become central, if not defining, characteristics of the Fidesz PartyFootnote 56 in Hungary, and the Law Justice Party in Poland.Footnote 57 Furthermore, both governments adopted a number of measures aimed at weakening and/or eliminating the various types of check-and-balance systems intended to restrict government over-reach. According to Scheppele et al, backsliding and deterioration of the rule of law and democracy can be identified in three distinct forms in Central and Eastern Europe countries joining the EU in the 2000s: (1) a lack of control exercised by the system of checks and balances; (2) a lack of free and fair competition for political parties that can challenge governing parties’ dominance; and (3) a lack of dissent against the liberal democratic political system – which is also a form of backsliding.Footnote 58
According to Priebus, Hungary under the Fidesz Party and Poland under the Law and Justice Party have taken similar, if not identical, political and legislative approaches to achieving their goals, at the expense of the rule of law and fundamental EU values.Footnote 59 Similarly, Halmai suggests that both the Hungarian and Polish governments use legal and constitutional means to weaken the system of checks and balances, and that various governments in other EU member states (such as Bulgaria, Malta, Romania and Slovakia) have taken a number of steps to retain and arbitrarily exercise power, thereby undermining the rule of law and democracy.Footnote 60 In response, the EU implemented a number of legal instruments, including the annual EU Rule of Law Report mechanism in 2020, and the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation in 2021.Footnote 61 The EU has made access to the EU budget, and payments from the resilience and recovery facility, conditional on EU member states’ compliance with the rule of law. Hungary and Poland took legal action for the annulment of these instruments before the Court of Justice of the European Union, as Hungary is among the largest recipients of EU funding per capita and Poland is the largest overall net recipient – even though they are already facing scrutiny for their poor rule of law records under the Article 7 procedure.Footnote 62 In the cases Hungary v Parliament and Council and Poland v Parliament and Council, the CJEU stated that ‘The EU Member States’ compliance with the common values founded on the European Union, such as the rule of law and solidarity, justifies the mutual trust between those States’, and the EU ‘must be able to defend those values’.Footnote 63
The key methods and the types of backsliding on the rule of law and the deterioration of democratic standards include: the systematic and intentional undermining of judicial independence; the packing of courts with loyalists; the suppression of media freedom, civil society and the opposition; the manipulation of election laws, and the weakening of checks on executive power by elected governments to solidify their authority. Some of these methods have been employed in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, and similar political and legal acts to undermine the rule of law can also be observed in the Western Balkans. The new framework for EU candidate countries has expanded the rule of law and EU fundamental values across various themes and negotiating chapters, in comparison with previous rounds of enlargement in the 2000s. This approach is aimed at assessing the candidate state’s ability not only to uphold the rule of law but also to demonstrate a credible track record of doing so – for example, by respecting and implementing court decisions and by effectively combating corruption at the highest levels.Footnote 64 Such an approach seeks to go beyond merely meeting basic legal standards on paper. This shift towards the EU becoming more prescriptive about a candidate state’s record on democracy, judicial independence and the rule of law is partly driven by negative experiences with Hungary, Poland and Slovakia: failures to comply with court decisions and EU law, and the weakening of whistleblower protectionsFootnote 65 – key tools for reporting corruption and the abuse of power. These developments raise concerns that similar issues may arise in the Western Balkans if they join the Union. Furthermore, the EU has adopted a similar strategy to safeguard EU funds and impose conditions on any financial support or payment to EU candidate states, taking heed of the negative experiences with Hungary and Poland. This approach has led to the development of preventive legal instruments to monitor the rule of law in these states, and to include any financial support through a conditionality system. For instance, after Hungary’s constitutional amendments, aimed at restricting fundamental rights and undermining the effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies, in 2025 the European Commission decided to freeze approximately €18 billion in EU funds.Footnote 66 The Commission took this action on the grounds that the amendments violated fundamental rights and weakened judicial independence.
In other words, a country must first establish a clear track record of upholding the rule of law and democratic standards; second, it must refrain from misusing EU funds; and third, it must demonstrate sustainable progress in the consolidation of its institutional framework, such as the robustness of enforcement for private law claims or the availability of judicial review of administrative action. Compliance with these three factors should prevent new member states from jeopardising the EU’s legal order, the application of EU law and judicial cooperation in criminal cases – as is currently the case in Hungary and Poland.
Therefore, Cluster 1 focuses on fundamental rights with the aim of reforming the EU candidate countries into becoming more democratic, and building a number of strong institutional frameworks, able to resist efforts to erode democracy by future leaders with autocratic tendencies. Furthermore, the EU has provided support to the Commission in implementing the aims of Cluster 1 to enhance the quality of democracy. This includes reforming the judicial and political systems using new legal tools, such as the annual EU Rule of Law Report, and linking any financial support through the reform and growth facility for the Western Balkans to the rule of law. This article argues that the EU’s policy of exerting greater pressure on Western Balkans leaders is appropriate, making it clear that undemocratic practices will not be tolerated or enabled by the EU – as was the case in Hungary and Poland, and now Slovakia. However, such an approach can only be effective if there is a timeline for when a candidate state can join the EU. The EU has yet to commit to an indicative accession date for any of the Western Balkans countries. Although expanding the rule of law across several negotiating chapters is a positive development, and makes it more central to the negotiation process, its impact will be limited without a clear timeline for accession, to effectively pressure candidate states to pursue reforms and provide clear incentives. Without such a timeline, long-term results will remain limited. Nevertheless, further research may provide more insights once the framework is applied to all EU candidate countries.
The concept of backsliding on the rule of law has received a great deal of discussion in the fields of jurisprudence and political science, but less with regard to EU candidate states, especially those of the Western Balkans. The literature defines ‘backsliding’ as the deliberate efforts of autocrats, who gain power through electoral means, to weaken the three fundamental elements of democracy outlined in the following section.Footnote 67 This article uses the terms ‘regress’ and ‘erosion’ in the context of the rule of law and democracy to present some examples from the Western Balkans. The next section presents an analysis of how the EU is taking more preventive measures in EU candidate countries, and how some of their practices are very similar, if not identical, to measures taken by the EU with respect to Poland and Hungary.Footnote 68
4. Forms and manifestations of the backsliding of the rule of law and erosion of democracy
Haggard and Kaufman suggest that there are three main pillars in a liberal democratic state: (1) the ability to hold free and fair elections; (2) the protection of basic political rights and liberties; and (3) strong horizontal checks on the executive by the other branches of government, particularly the judiciary – commonly known as the ‘rule of law’.Footnote 69 According to Pech and Scheppele, the backsliding of the rule of law and the erosion of democracy is an attempt by leaders with autocratic tendencies to gain power and capture the state through elections in a sophisticated manner that is not outright autocracy, but where the country is perceived as a democratic state.Footnote 70 Freedom House has classified the majority of the Western Balkans as having hybrid democracies, while the V-Dem Institute has categorised half of the countries of the region as electoral autocracies; Serbia is proffered as the most extreme example of an electoral autocracy.Footnote 71 These features and elements have been well reported in Hungary and Poland, with the EU Parliament arguing that HungaryFootnote 72 has also become an electoral autocracy; examples from the Western Balkans are discussed below.
A. Holding free and fair elections
The electoral process is at the heart of a liberal democracy, and at its core democracy is founded on a country’s ability to hold free and fair elections. If opposition parties are not allowed to compete freely in a fair election, and do not have the potential to take office through the electoral process, then democracy is effectively eradicated, and the country is in some form of dictatorial or authoritarian regime.Footnote 73 Key to a fair election is the integrity of the electoral system. Any efforts by the party in power to disenfranchise voters; to suppress the vote through onerous registration or voting laws – or, more recently, through disinformation campaigns that mislead voters about their voting rights and interfere with election monitoring integrity; and/or outright electoral fraud all make a state ineligible for consideration for EU membership as a democratic nation.Footnote 74
In most Western Balkans countries, the electoral process is free, and takes place every four years for both legislative and local elections as well as, in some countries, every five years for presidential elections. Nevertheless, the electoral process is neither fair nor in accordance with liberal democratic principles. This is due to the fact that election rules and laws are frequently established to favour the incumbent party, as evidenced by the regulations introduced by Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In some cases, there is conclusive evidence of electoral fraud and violations of electoral laws, as observed in Serbia in 2023, in favour of the incumbent party of Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić.Footnote 75 Furthermore, some Western Balkan countries engage in voter suppression, manipulation and gerrymandering, targeting ethnic groups such as Muslims (1.7 million, constituting 50 per cent of the population) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and ethnic Albanians (over 620,000, constituting up to 29 per cent of the population) in North Macedonia, which can lead to ethnic unrest.Footnote 76
Albania held its last parliamentary elections in 2025Footnote 77 and its last local elections in 2023.Footnote 78 The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the European Commission and Freedom House all reported and identified a number of shortcomings, and questioned the integrity of the state’s most recent electoral process. In both elections, there were a number of allegations of misuse of state resources at national and local levels, as well as pressure on public-sector workers to vote for the ruling Socialist party, giving it a significant advantage.Footnote 79 Furthermore, a number of allegations of vote-buying from various political parties, and voter intimidation by both incumbent and opposition parties, were recorded. In March 2024, ahead of the forthcoming 2025 parliamentary elections, the Albanian Helsinki Committee published a study finding no indictment or active investigation into the alleged voter fraud for the last two elections – this calls into question the will of the authorities to address allegations or improve confidence in the electoral process.Footnote 80
Since 2020, the OSCE has made recommendations, and the European Commission has urged Albania to amend its election law and include safeguards against abuse of administrative resources. In the 2023 local elections, most ministers, while not running as candidates, publicly participated in the Socialist ruling party’s campaign, with no obvious boundary between their official and campaign activities.Footnote 81 Furthermore, the Prime Minister Edi Rama explicitly stated on several occasions that future government support for such municipalitiesFootnote 82 would be conditional on election results – clearly implying that if citizens did not vote favourably, the area would not receive the same financial and political support; in the end, the Socialists ended up winning 54 of the country’s 61 mayoral elections, including every single large city.Footnote 83 The 2025 parliamentary election produced a comparable outcome, with the Socialists securing a historic fourth consecutive term – an achievement unprecedented since the fall of communism. They won approximately two-thirds of the parliamentary seats, totalling 83 out of 140, representing a significant increase from the 68 seats they held upon first coming to power in 2013.Footnote 84 In its latest progress report on Albania, published in November 2025, the European Commission once again called for reforms to the election law, and for measures to improve electoral competitiveness.Footnote 85
Election law in Albania favours candidates for parliament from the two major political parties (Socialists and Democrats) because the system does not ensure equal opportunity for independent candidates or small parties without parliamentary seats. This is due to a greater threshold for them to enter parliament for the first time, compared with the two major parties already holding most seats in parliament. The EU and the OSCE have stated that this system does not provide a fair and equal playing field for all candidates and parties, and is not in line with the best international standards.Footnote 86
Furthermore, since the 2009 parliamentary election, Albanian election rules have enabled major political parties to pre-tape their political rallies, town halls, campaign activities and meetings with voters, barring TVs and journalists from recording or live streaming footage during campaign meetings between party leaders and voters.Footnote 87 Instead, pre-recorded tapes from political parties’ PR offices are shared after the events. This practice has been criticised by the Albanian Union of Journalists, as it precludes the media and independent thinkers from properly scrutinising political parties during the campaign.Footnote 88 The narrative is controlled, and in some cases voters are misinformed and misled; campaigns are based mostly on personal attacks against the leaders of the two primary parties, rather than on the needs of voters or party manifestos. According to the V-Dem Institute, similar patterns are evident in a number of other Western Balkan states; V-Dem considers Serbia to be the worst case in the Western Balkans, as it does not meet basic standards and conditions for free and fair elections. Incumbents gain an undue advantage by using state resources, manipulating election laws to their benefit and otherwise undermining electoral competitiveness. The European Parliament acknowledgedFootnote 89 these concerns in a resolution adopted in 2024, characterising Serbia as an electoral autocracy.Footnote 90 This approach from the state was clearly manifested in the 2025 Serbian local elections, which included intimidation against opposition candidatesFootnote 91 and alleged electoral irregularity, delivering the incumbent government another term.Footnote 92 Since 2010, Hungary has widely been reported to have adopted numerous regulations, laws and practices that favoured Viktor Orbán, who served as Hungary’s prime minister for 16 years until his recent electoral defeat on 10 April 2026.Footnote 93 Under Orbán’s leadership, Hungary was transformed into a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy within the EU.Footnote 94 The Commission clearly understands the challenges Hungary was facing under Orbán, and, in the new EU accession negotiations framework, the Commission has placed in Cluster 1 the requirement to evaluate the Western Balkans’ capacity to hold free and fair elections. Since Albania opened Cluster 1 of its EU accession negotiations in October 2024, the Commission has intensified its scrutiny of the shortcomings in the electoral system, treating electoral reform as one of the core components of democratic consolidation and accession conditionality.Footnote 95 Enhancing electoral competitiveness and aligning the framework with EU best practice are increasingly viewed not only as prerequisites for credible parliamentary elections in 2029, but also as critical benchmarks shaping Albania’s prospects of joining the EU before the end of this decade.
B. Protection of fundamental liberties and political rights
The protection of essential liberties and political rights is foundational to the EU. Civil society organisations, anti-government organisations and political parties cannot survive in the absence of rights to free expression, assembly and association. The protection of the media is an essential component of one of the key pillars of liberal democracy, which the EU has taken very seriously over the last five years, introducing the European Media Freedom Act and EU Whistleblower Directive to provide more common safeguards at the EU level. This development followed assaults on the media in a number of member states,Footnote 96 in particular Malta, where journalist Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia was killed for exposing corruption involving former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.Footnote 97 The EU’s enlargement policy for the Western Balkans promotes active participation by civil society and the media, making support these for actors a precondition for EU accession.Footnote 98
However, many of these rights have been adopted on paper to satisfy EU conditions, but are not upheld in practice. In some cases, such as Serbia, fundamental liberties and political rights were reported to be violated on a number of occasions.Footnote 99 Most notably, during the recent local and parliamentary elections in 2024/25, mass protests erupted across the country following the collapse of the railway station canopy in Novi Sad, resulting in the deaths of 16 people and leaving many others seriously injured. Authorities reportedly detained protesters who alleged electoral fraud and allegedly employed illegal sonic weapons to suppress and intimidate demonstrations against the governmentFootnote 100 – this situation has been recognised by several international human rights organisations as a serious violation of fundamental rights. Over the last ten years, since President Alexander Vučić came to power – first as prime minister and later as president – media freedoms and the civic space in Serbia have been eroded, characterised by threats against, and even physical attacks on, journalists, civil society members and, more recently, political opponents.Footnote 101
Reporters Without Borders places Serbia among the lowest in Europe on its press freedom index. According to the 2024 Freedom House report Serbia has been downgraded to a ‘partly-free’ country, and for the last two years it has been considered by Freedom House and V-Dem as an elected autocracy under Vučić.Footnote 102 More than half of its journalists (53.8 per cent) were censured by central government in 2023, and the Regional Platform for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists’ Safety recorded more than 50 attacks on journalists in 2022, from verbal death threats and bodily harm, through physical attacks, to cases of attacks on media outlets and organisations.Footnote 103 Journalists’ safety was especially endangered when reporting from public gatherings and protests – for example, when an election observer body from the OSCE reported on serious irregularities in the 2023 local and parliamentary elections, including vote buying, voter migration and ballot box stuffing.Footnote 104 Various protests were held by the opposition and civil society organisations, calling for a re-election, and several cases of intimidation and harassment of civil society activists and journalists were recorded, such as physical attacks by the police and security services, use of pepper spray, the smashing of cameras and expulsion of journalists from press conferences by members of the government.Footnote 105
According to Amnesty International, Serbian police and intelligence authorities have been employing sophisticated phone spyware and mobile phone forensic products to unlawfully target journalists, environmental activists and other individuals – including students and academics – in a covert surveillance campaign of those who have been critical of Vučić’s rule.Footnote 106 Furthermore, intimidation has been perpetrated against academics, such as former head of Serbian Security and Intelligence Agency (BIA) Aleksandar Vulin’s threats against Professor Dinko Gruhonjić,Footnote 107 and the repeated verbal attacks by the Serbian President on former Freedom House country author for Serbia Nikola Burazer, following Serbia’s downgrading in the Freedom House democratic classification.Footnote 108 Most concerning were the physical attacks against one of the leaders of the opposition, Nikola Sandulović, who was abducted and assaulted by the BIA in January 2024, after Sandulović publicly apologised for Serbia’s crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.Footnote 109 The Serbian Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that Sandulović had been given up to 30 days’ detention for the ‘suspected criminal act of causing racial, national, and religious hatred’. Vulin admitted ordering the arrest, suggesting Sandulović’s actions in support of Kosovo were deserving of much greater punishment.Footnote 110 Serbia has received criticism from the EU, United States and United Kingdom over Sandulović’s arrest, as well as alleged voter fraud and the repression of media and civil society.
Despite sustained democratic backsliding in Serbia, the EU approved substantial financial assistance – approximately €51.7 million – under the EU Growth Plan for the Western Balkans in June 2025.Footnote 111 This decision can partially be attributed to the strategic raw materials partnership concluded between Serbia and the EU in July 2024, which prioritises access to lithium and other critical minerals central to the EU’s green transition.Footnote 112 The agreement is widely regarded as a key component of the EU’s efforts to secure battery supply chains and is projected to account for approximately 19 per cent of the EU’s future demand for battery materials. This case illustrates an emerging tension between the EU’s geopolitical and economic interests, and its long-standing normative commitments to democracy and the rule of law in the EU candidate countries. The agreement has generated significant domestic opposition – particularly from environmental movements, which have raised serious concerns regarding governance, transparency and environmental standards. Moreover, the agreement appears to have further strengthened Vučić’s political position, raising questions about whether EU strategic imperatives, such as with regard to securing critical minerals, are increasingly overriding democratic accountability and environmental safeguards in Serbia.
As these examples illustrate, corroborated by the 2024 Freedom House report and V-Dem data, civil society space and media freedom have been significantly curtailed under Vučić’s leadership over the past decade. These trends point to a systematic pattern of democratic backsliding, in which formal democratic institutions persist but are increasingly undermined by constraints on pluralism, lack of independent oversight and limited public contestation.Footnote 113 Similar deterioration in the protection of fundamental liberties and political rights has also been widely reported in Hungary, Poland, Malta and Bulgaria, among others, and contributed to the EU’s decision to withhold funds under the EU’s rule of law conditionality regulation from Hungary and PolandFootnote 114 until they meet the conditions for protecting CSOs, media and other government watchdogs.Footnote 115 However, the main concern in the area of rule of law backsliding and democratic regression is that power in the Western Balkans is largely concentrated in the hands of the executive, and there are weak checks-and-balances systems, as demonstrated below, which have proven to be the most difficult area to reform.
C. A system of checks and balances
For a liberal democracy to function, it must have in place a system of checks and balances that clearly separate the powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The concept of checks and balances can be traced back to Montesquieu and the Federalist PapersFootnote 116 in the eighteenth century, and is an important component of a functional EU liberal democracy. Without a self-limiting government, in particular, the electoral majorities that come into government must have incentives to temper their power through continued submission to scrutiny through the legislature and judiciary. At the core of the erosion of democracy and backsliding of the rule of law, there is typically a ‘collapse in the separation of powers’ between branches of government, as the executive gains control of the other two branches – especially the judiciary. As we will see, the erosion of checks and balances may also involve the weakening of a variety of other independent institutions that serve to check the three branches of power, such as the ombudsmen for human rights, the commissioner for personal data, ethics and whistleblower bodies, and anti-corruption agencies. Ginsburg and Huq note that such checks extend to the administrative rule of law: the presumption that bureaucratic institutions and actors will act in accordance with the laws, and not at the political and personal whim of an autocratic executive.Footnote 117
In North Macedonia, the three arms of government have frequently been out of balance because the executive branch – particularly the government led by the prime minister – controls the parliament and the judiciary.Footnote 118 The country has been in a severe political and institutional crisis since 2015, when opposition parties accused former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his counter-intelligence chief of masterminding the wiretapping of more than 20,000 people. This was later proven to be true, illustrating the weakness of the country’s system of checks and balances.Footnote 119 The deal brokered by the EU with parties to end the political crisis and restore trust in the judiciary included early elections and the establishment of a special prosecutor’s office against organised crime, partially funded by the EU and the United States.Footnote 120
The wiretapping scandal exposed not only the corrupt practices of high-ranking officials, including then Prime Minister Gruevski, but also many systemic flaws in constitutional and political systems, confirming an imbalance in the system of checks and balances, as well as how far politics had captured the state. The judiciary was the most weakened, since the wiretap revealed its submissiveness to party control, clientelism, nepotism and other corruptive behaviours that decrease citizens’ trust in the judicial system and, more broadly, the country’s democratic state. In response to the controversy, Gruevski fled the country and was granted political refuge in Hungary to avoid investigation; he was later sentenced, in his absence, to two years in prison in North Macedonia for abuse of power and corruption.Footnote 121 The EU Commission challenged Viktor Orbán (the Hungarian Prime Minister at the time) to explain why Gruevski was granted asylum, an act considered harmful to the process of establishing the rule of law and accountability in an EU candidate state.Footnote 122
Following the crisis, the EU funded a committee of specialists, led by former European Commission director Reinhard Priebe, to compile a report on the state of the country’s checks and balances.Footnote 123 The analysis concluded that a lack of respect for the rule of law was the primary reason why the country had such a weak system of checks and balances, and proposed a number of reforms in light of the EU accession process to strengthen the judicial system and stabilise the country, in addition to changing the constitution and passing a number of laws to strengthen the judiciary. Critical to this process was the establishment of a Special Prosecution (led by Katica Janeva) with an EU-supported mandate to dismantle North Macedonia’s ‘captured state’.
Initially, Janeva’s team was quite successful, charging over 90 individuals, including former senior officials and former Prime Minister Gruevski.Footnote 124 However, the team’s credibility was short-lived, as a number of scandals erupted in 2019, after the Italian newspaper La Verita’ published audio and video recordings alleging chief special prosecutor Janeva herself was involved in a bribery scheme, working with an intermediary who took €1.5 million from Orce Kamcev, one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, and who was at that time under investigation by the prosecutor’s office.Footnote 125 In March 2024, the US State Department sanctioned Janeva for corruption and abuse of power, and she was found guilty by the Skopje Criminal Court.Footnote 126 Subsequently, former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s government also collapsed due to allegations of corruption and abuse of power.Footnote 127 Since both the Gruevski conservative and Zaev social-democratic governments collapsed because of abuse of power and high-level corruption, North Macedonia’s EU membership is strongly conditional on strengthening its system of checks and balances, particularly on demonstrating a solid track record of combating corruption and organised crime.Footnote 128
Examples of efforts to undermine and weaken the system of checks and balances, such as those discussed above in North Macedonia, can be observed across the Western Balkans. In response, the European Commission has sought to adapt its approach by implementing pre-emptive policies and conditionalities to address shortcomings in candidate countries, while also drawing lessons from challenges faced by existing EU member states, most prominently Hungary and Poland.Footnote 129 Between 2015 and 2023, under the Law and Justice government, Poland witnessed a significant erosion of judicial independence. This decline was driven by politically motivated reforms that targeted the judicial system, including appointments of judges closely affiliated with the Law and Justice Party. These actions undermined the rule of law and the system of checks and balances. In response, the Commission initiated legal action under Article 7(1) of the Treaty on European Union and referred Poland to the CJEU, citing the incompatibility of its Disciplinary Chamber with EU law. The CJEU agreed and subsequently imposed a record fine (€1 million per day) on Poland for failing to suspend the Disciplinary Chamber.Footnote 130 Similarly, under Orbán’s recently defeated Fidesz Party, Hungary had taken steps to weaken judicial independence. The EU subsequently introduced mechanisms to safeguard the rule of law, including the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation, which restricts EU funding to member states that violate the rule of law, and the annual Rule of Law Report, which monitors governance standards across the Union.Footnote 131 This experience demonstrates that the EU is aware of the risks facing the Western Balkans, and is attempting to pre-empt similar backsliding.
Accordingly, the EU has grouped all institutional and procedural instruments safeguarding the rule of law into Cluster 1 (the fundamentals) and prioritises these issues in negotiations with Western Balkan candidates, addressing the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. It is still too early to evaluate the practical application of the revised accession framework, and the Reform and Growth Facility as the first instalments were only allocated in the summer of 2025. But so far, the approach presents a mixed picture: on the one hand, this strategy strengthens pre-emptive measures; on the other, geopolitical interests sometimes outweigh attention to shortcomings in democratic governance and the rule of law.
As of January 2026, under the revised accession framework, Albania and Montenegro have emerged as frontrunners for EU membership in the Western Balkans.Footnote 132 Albania has opened all six negotiating clusters, including the final cluster on ‘Resources, Agriculture, and Cohesion’,Footnote 133 while Montenegro has opened all chapters and is progressing rapidly towards closing them. Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos has indicated that the Commission aims to complete the technical process by 2027 and begin negotiations on the accession treaty with all 27 EU member states between 2027 and 2029, preparing both countries for potential membership before the end of the decade.Footnote 134
While opening all clusters represents an important procedural milestone, substantive challenges remain, particularly in the area of the rule of law. Weaknesses persist in judicial independence, anti-corruption mechanisms and institutional accountability. One of the frontrunners, Albania began rule of law reforms in 2016, and the establishment of the Special Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime Structure (SPAK) in 2019, a condition of EU accession, has led to charges against high-level former officials, including former presidents, prime ministers and attorneys general.Footnote 135 NATO membership and alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, particularly since Russia’s war in Ukraine, have further strengthened Albania and Montenegro’s strategic profiles.Footnote 136 By contrast, Serbia has not fully aligned with EU sanctions on Russia, resulting in criticism and limited advancement on Cluster 6 (external relations).Footnote 137 Across the Western Balkans, EU engagement has occasionally conflicted with the objectives of democratic reform, as geopolitical and strategic priorities often take precedence over governance issues. Notable examples include Serbia’s strategic lithium partnership, Albania’s collaboration with Italy on migration return hubs and the EU’s limited ability to influence reforms in North Macedonia. Collectively, these instances highlight how security, economic and strategic interests can undermine the effectiveness of conditionality and hinder the consistent promotion of democratic governance.
This tension is further reflected in the first allocation of the EU’s Reform and Growth Facility, which has a total financial envelope of €6 billion (€2 billion in grants and €4 billion in concessional loans) for the six Western Balkan partners from 2024 to 2027.Footnote 138 Disbursements are conditional on implementing agreed socioeconomic and fundamental reforms, linking financial support directly to institutional and structural progress, including in the rule of law. As of November 2025, €414 million had been disbursed to Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, while Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina have not yet received funds, pending ratification of agreements and endorsement of their Reform Agendas.Footnote 139 The EU has faced criticism for allocating funds to Serbia and North Macedonia, particularly following the VMRO-DPMNEFootnote 140 victory in North Macedonia’s May 2024 parliamentary elections, given steps that undermined the Prespa Agreement with Greece and the Ohrid Framework Agreement,Footnote 141 affecting minority rights and equitable ethnic representation.Footnote 142
The selective and conditional nature of these disbursements underscores a broader tension in EU enlargement policy. While the Commission seeks to advance accession processes to maintain geopolitical influence and regional stability, compliance with democratic and rule of law standards continues to lag. Strategic priorities – such as Serbia’s lithium partnership, Albania’s migration-related cooperation and discussions on potential migration return hubs with North Macedonia – demonstrate instances where EU economic and geopolitical objectives can overshadow democratic and rule of law reforms. Thus, a persistent gap remains between procedural progress, financial support and meaningful institutional reform. Although the new accession framework and reform and growth facility as instruments represent a positive development in the field of EU enlargement policy, the nature of these instruments to address rule of law and democratic shortcomings, and their success, depend on the political will of Western Balkan governments to uphold the rule of law and implement key reforms, and the EU’s ability to enforce clear accession timelines.
In summary, Western Balkan governments have highly centralised power structures that undermine checks and balances, resembling the governance model observed in Hungary under Orbán.Footnote 143 The EU has occasionally compromised rule of law measures in Poland and Hungary in exchange for geopolitical support, particularly regarding Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.Footnote 144 Unlike with existing EU member states, however, the EU has the power to postpone integration of candidate countries in the Western Balkans, and the revised accession framework, coupled with financial conditionalities under the reform and growth facility, provides the Commission with the tools to withhold support from countries failing to advance rule of law reforms or to align with EU foreign policy. Initial fund allocations have been modest, and a full assessment of the reform and growth facility for the Western Balkans will only be possible in the second instalments, post-2027, once the prospects for a new wave of enlargement – including the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia – become clearer, and there is a record of the use or misuse of funds under the reform and growth facility.
5. Conclusion
Considering the state of compliance with the rule of law in some of the EU candidate countries, as discussed in this article, the next wave of EU enlargement to the Western Balkans, as well as to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, will undoubtedly be very challenging. Significant work will be needed to convince the EU that these countries are able to apply and uphold EU fundamental rights and values – particularly in the context of negative experiences of the rule of law backsliding in several EU member states. The 2024 Commission communiqué, ‘Commission Prepares for Pre-enlargement Reforms and Policy Reviews’, acknowledges that enlargement is not without challenges; it highlights that ‘candidate countries will need to carry out substantive political, institutional, and policy reforms to be ready for membership’.Footnote 145
Meeting the EU rule of law standard will be a major challenge for the candidate countries, as they must demonstrate a long track record of upholding the rule of law and the expectation of a separation of powers between different branches of government. The EU has experienced regression and backsliding with respect to the rule of law in a number of EU member states, in particular in Hungary and Poland. This is one of the contributing factors in the EU’s adoption of a new framework for accession and enlargement, which has expanded emphasis on the rule of law across the membership chapters of negotiations, and linked EU funds to a new system of conditional payments based on the performance of EU candidate countries in upholding the rule of law. These tools are new, and it is still too early to fully assess their impact. Payments were only approved in 2025 in just four out of the six Western Balkan countries, and have so far been modest. Nevertheless, this represents a positive development in strengthening EU enlargement policy, by taking more pre-emptive measures to ensure that candidate states not only reform their judicial systems, but also build a track record of upholding the rule of law. However, as discussed in this article, at times geopolitical developments and arrangements with EU candidate states, such as Serbia’s lithium deal, override the instruments for monitoring compliance with the rule of law, resulting in countries being rewarded with funds despite clear evidence of regression in rule of law standards.
The overarching objective of the EU accession negotiations framework is to foster a cultural shift in the implementation of the rule of law – a lesson drawn from the repeated activation of Article 7(1) TEU against the Hungarian and Polish governments and, more recently in the case of Slovakia, due to their backsliding and failure to uphold the fundamental principles of EU membership.Footnote 146 These cases illustrate that EU candidate states require not only structural reforms, but also the political will to uphold the rule of law. Achieving the appropriate balance between legal reforms and cultural adherence to democratic norms remains a complex and challenging task. The EU cannot indefinitely maintain the Western Balkans in a state of accession limbo, given that the region has been promised a ‘European perspective’ since 2003. With discussions now underway to fast-track Ukraine’s accession by 2030, this situation is likely to create dissatisfaction, particularly in light of the reforms the Western Balkans have undertaken to date, while Ukraine has not yet opened any of the negotiating clusters. The forthcoming enlargement is framed as a ‘geo-strategic investment in peace, security, stability, and prosperity’ following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and includes the Western Balkans, given Russia’s political and economic influence in some Balkan states.Footnote 147 Nevertheless, such an enlargement process risks failure if candidate countries are inadequately prepared to internalise the rule of law, both institutionally and culturally, and if they do not demonstrate full commitment to EU fundamental values.
Competing interests
The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.
Open access
