The EU’s enlargement reality check

This week, The Neighbourhood shifts from the “why” of enlargement to the “how”—specifically, how reforms are unfolding on the ground and what drives progress or stagnation. The 2025 Enlargement Package presents a mixed picture: Ukraine and Moldova are racing ahead, while Serbia and Georgia are lagging. The EU itself is struggling with internal divisions and reform fatigue. Jessica is joined by Tiago Antunes , senior policy fellow with ECFR’s European Power programme, Leo Litra , visiting fellow at ECFR and senior fellow at Kyiv’s New Europe Center and Engjellushe Morina , senior policy fellow with ECFR’s European Security programme. Together, they discuss what this year’s enlargement report says about political will, institutional resilience and the everyday impact of enlargement. How can the EU make conditionality more credible? Are EU reforms changing behaviour in governments, institutions and people’s lives? And how can Brussels keep the reform energy alive? This episode was recorded on November 12th 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can listen to The EU’s enlargement reality check online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The EU’s enlargement reality check is an episode from ECFR Clips by ECFR ON AIR.

This episode is 36:58 long.

This episode was published on Nov 14, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from ECFR Clips when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.