A MODEL OF TRANSFERENCE OF THE EU INTEGRATION EXPERIENCE

Perhaps the most exciting and far-reaching policy in the history of EU integration, enlargement seems to have met its heyday with the unprecedented East-Central waves of the 2000s, whose transformative impact on the beneficiary countries and on the Union itself have been nothing short of remarkable. The research included in this volume aims to emphasise that putting the brakes on this vital task the EU needs to conduct in order to maintain its appeal not only in its immediate neighbourhood, but throughout the world, would not bode well in the current geopolitical context. Indeed, the debate around the prominence, and perhaps urgency, of enlargement was genuinely rekindled only as a consequence of Russiäs war of aggression against Ukraine, as of February 2022. This is prompting the member states (albeit not all of them to the same extent) to reconsider the pace of negotiations with the Western Balkans and the European future of Ukraine and Moldova, now recognised as potential candidates.