Rethinking EU Enlargement: Recognizing Democratic Energy Beyond Institutions
- ISSH Skopje
- Jun 5
- 3 min read
Executive Summary
The current EU enlargement process in the Western Balkans increasingly appears less like a clear path toward membership and more like a prolonged condition of political suspension. Candidate countries are asked to reform, align, and wait, while the final political decision on accession remains repeatedly deferred. This creates frustration, democratic fatigue, and a sense of being permanently “close to Europe” without being fully included.
The paper “Cycling to Brussels: Democratic Subjectivity Between Situationship and Political Form” offers a useful way to understand this condition. It describes the relationship between the EU and candidate countries, especially Serbia, as a kind of political “situationship”: a relation marked by proximity, engagement, and expectation, but without clear commitment or resolution. This concept is relevant not only for Serbia, but also for students and young citizens across the Western Balkans, including North Macedonia, who often experience EU integration as both a hope and a delayed promise.
The most important insight of the paper is that democracy should not be understood only as something produced by formal institutions, elections, or accession procedures. Democratic subjectivity can also emerge through collective action, public presence, protest, student mobilization, and the reclaiming of public space. The Serbian student movements, including symbolic actions such as cycling toward Brussels, show that young people can enact democratic values even when institutions fail to represent them.
For policymakers, this means that EU enlargement cannot rely only on technical benchmarks, reports, and institutional reforms. It also needs to recognize and support democratic practices that emerge from society itself. If the EU wants to remain credible in the Western Balkans, it must learn to recognize democracy not only when it appears in official institutions, but also when it is practiced by citizens, students, and movements demanding justice, dignity, accountability, and a European future.
The enlargement process risks becoming a mechanism of waiting rather than transformation. When candidate countries remain in a prolonged state of uncertainty, citizens may lose trust both in domestic institutions and in the EU. This is especially dangerous for young people, who may begin to see European integration as an abstract promise rather than a real democratic horizon.
At the same time, new democratic energy is appearing outside formal institutions. Student movements, civic protests, and public actions show that citizens are not passive. However, these forms of democratic participation are often not fully recognized by EU institutions or national governments.
Policy Recommendations
The EU should recognize civic and student movements as democratic actors. EU institutions should not communicate only with governments, political parties, and formal civil society organizations. Student movements, informal civic initiatives, and grassroots democratic actions should be treated as important indicators of democratic vitality.
Enlargement policy should include democratic participation, not only institutional compliance. Progress reports and assessments should pay more attention to civic participation, public trust, youth mobilization, and the quality of democratic public space. Democracy is not only a matter of laws and procedures, but also of whether citizens feel able to act politically.
The EU should avoid turning enlargement into endless waiting. A credible enlargement process needs clearer political signals, more transparent timelines, and visible rewards for democratic reform. Without this, the process produces frustration and opens space for anti-EU narratives.
National governments should protect public space and university autonomy. Student activism and peaceful civic mobilization should not be treated as disorder or instability. Governments in the region should guarantee the right to protest, academic freedom, and the autonomy of universities as spaces where democratic subjectivity can develop.
Youth participation should become a central part of EU-Western Balkans dialogue. The EU should create more direct platforms for students and young citizens from the region to contribute to debates on enlargement, democracy, and the future of Europe. This would help move enlargement from a bureaucratic process to a shared political project.
Conclusion
The future of EU enlargement depends not only on whether candidate countries fulfil formal criteria, but also on whether the EU can recognize democratic practices that emerge outside official institutions. Student movements in the region show that democracy is not only something to be implemented from above, but something that can be enacted from below.
For students from North Macedonia and the wider Western Balkans, this is an important lesson: being European should not mean only waiting for accession. It can also mean practicing democratic values now - through solidarity, public engagement, accountability, and collective action.
A more credible enlargement policy should therefore connect institutional reform with civic democratic energy. Without this connection, enlargement risks remaining a suspended promise. With it, enlargement can become a genuinely democratic process.
Group of Macedonian students and researchers/participants on the conference “Overcoming Polarization and Rising Euroscepticism and Erosion of Trust in the Process Among Civil Society in North Macedonia and Serbia”
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