EU and NATO enlargement has become a key arena for geopolitical rivalry between the Euro-Atlantic institutions and Russia. Yet it is not only a story of great-power competition; the process is also shaped by the strategic agency of candidate and aspiring states, including Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and the Western Balkans.
This panel asks whether the candidate states for membership in the EU pursue their own strategic game — leveraging the prospect of membership to advance domestic reforms and legitimise elites, while simultaneously undermining these activities in search of pragmatic arrangements with Russia in areas such as energy and trade.
By shifting attention to regional actors, the discussion concentrates on the strategic autonomy of “in between” states, where balancing and hedging emerge as rational responses to systemic rivalry.
Panel „Integration by Negation: The Western Balkans and Eastern Europe in the Politics of Waiting”