Contesting Europe from the waiting room

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• GGP: Global Governance Programme
• Eastern Europe as Laboratory of Change Working Group

EU enlargement has long been conceptualised as a process of conditionality and Europeanisation, in which candidate countries adopt EU norms in response to incentives and political pressure.

Yet developments in the Western Balkans increasingly challenge this model. Governments continue to affirm their commitment to EU membership while simultaneously delaying, reinterpreting, or selectively implementing reform.

This seminar proposes a shift in perspective: from conditionality to contestation. Drawing on constructivist research on norm contestation, enlargement is conceptualised as a political arena in which actors dispute not only the implementation, but also the meaning and legitimacy of EU norms.

Viewing enlargement from the EU’s ‘waiting room’ shows how candidate countries strategically reinterpret EU conditions while navigating increasing geopolitical competition and cultivating alternative alignments. This perspective raises broader questions about the authority of EU norms and the evolving role of enlargement in an increasingly contested European order.

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