EU expansion by 2030 is crucial, a commission directed by German and French ministers has declared, according to Euractiv reports on September 26.
The commission, led by the European affairs ministers of Germany and France, released a report last week contending that EU enlargement was vital for geopolitical reasons.
Moreover, the commission recommended various significant reforms before such enlargement could take place, such as removing unanimity in the Council, thus considerably undermining member states’ sovereignty.
The Centre for European Studies (CEPS), a think tank, notably supported the commission’s report, arguing in a study published on September 26 that the EU must swiftly incorporate the Western Balkan countries that have been waiting for accession for more than 10 years to counter “dangerous external influence and power play in the region.” Also, the study singled out China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia as the EU’s biggest competitors.
Most German officials were arguably motivated by geopolitical reasons to back the EU’s 2030 enlargement deadline, but they maintained that Brussels’ internal dynamics had to undergo immense change to include the newcomers.
“The [European] status quo is not stable,” stated Germany’s ruling socialist SPD’s European affairs spokesman Christian Petry after the government officially backed the Franco-German report on September 25, hinting that EU membership would stabilize neighboring countries. “2030 could be a year of enlargement,” he elaborated, but only “if all sides implement necessary reforms.”
Nonetheless, both CEPS and the German government posited that the 2030 deadline might be unrealistic “due to lack of political will in certain member states” within the bloc, “specifically some of those that push for a quick accession for Ukraine,” Petry proclaimed.
Central European member states, particularly Poland, have been some of the greatest advocates for EU expansion both toward the east and the south, but are also the largest opponents of further centralizing reforms, such as ditching the unanimity requirement for key decisions in the Council.
The Franco-German report lobbied for switching to qualified majority voting in fiscal and tax policy questions first and then slowly widening to other policy areas, including security and migration, a move that touched the raw nerves of Poland and many others.
However, not even the German government was prepared to surrender more sovereignty to Brussels, as the liberal FDP opposed such reforms after they earned the support of the coalition’s other two parties, the Social Democrats and Greens, declaring that deeper integration would be “the wrong track” to adopt.
Additionally, the 2025 German elections could alter Berlin’s views, since the SPD is now only third in the polls, implying the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) could return to power. The CDU has hitherto emphasized on several occasions that it was risky to fix a deadline for enlargement talks since it all boiled down whether aspiring EU candidates fulfilled all relevant membership conditions.
According to a Eurativ report, Petry still maintained that the chances for EU expansion were still “as big as they [have] been in years.”
On September 25, Polish public broadcaster TVP’s Brussels correspondent Dominica Cosic claimed that “according to off-the-record conversations in Brussels, Germany and France allegedly promised Ukraine a fast entry to the EU if Kyiv helps overthrow the current Polish government.” Berlin and Paris have supposedly informed Kyiv that for Ukraine to join the EU, treaty changes “which are being blocked by Poland” were necessary.
Cosic elaborated that as new countries can only join the EU based on current treaties, the real reason Germany and France were hoping to amend the treaties was “solely to increase their powers and the powers of EU institutions.”
In turn, former Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło — presently a member of the European Parliament for the governing Polish Law and Justice (PiS) party — verified that “the German authorities are currently focused on making a fast change in the European Treaties, to make the EU a federal state.”
As the Polish government “will oppose turning Europe into a federation” governed from Berlin, German politicians “would like to see a change in government in Poland,” Szydło penned on social-media platform X, questioning: “Is Germany ‘buying’ Ukrainian authorities with the promise of fast entry to the EU? It is possible.”
For her part, Szydło thought that taking up an offer of quick entry to the EU in exchange for helping topple the Polish government would be “extremely naive” on the part of the Kyiv regime.
As The New American previously reported, France and Germany are suggesting a major reform of the EU to deal with a possible EU expansion — with as many as 10 countries, including Ukraine, possibly joining the alliance within the next 10 years. Consequently, such a reform would lead to the removal of national vetoes, with qualified majority voting instead to eliminate impediments to decision-making. Also, the recommendation also called for a tiered membership in which some countries enjoy more say than others.
For some context, the relatively more conservative governments of Hungary and Poland have been putting up roadblocks to initiatives, such as taxation and migration matters, championed by Western globalists and EU institutions.
In particular, Poland’s Constitutional Court even announced that national law carried more weight than EU law, a move that incensed liberals in Brussels. In turn, Poland and Hungary have been the only EU members that have yet to obtain their share of EU recovery funds.
Complicating matters even further for Berlin and Paris, the ruling PiS party is scheduled to emerge victorious in the upcoming October elections. PiS might even establish a coalition with the eurosceptic party Konfederacja, which has been vocally against the government’s backing of Ukraine. With the election campaign intensifying, PiS has also toughened its position pertaining to Ukraine, including forbidding imports of Ukrainian grain to protect Polish farmers, and halting arms supplies to Ukraine.
In response to Szydło’s claims, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “the Ukrainian side has not received any such proposals and has no intention of interfering in Poland’s internal affairs.”
Western globalists back Polish politician Donald Tusk, a former President of the European Council and present leader of the main opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), to diminish Poland’s strong relations with Hungary and ensure the country becomes more compliant with the EU’s demands. Recent polls have disclosed that PO was behind PiS by seven percentage points, though it could still forge a coalition with leftist, liberal, and center-right parties.
