On the Glacial Pace of E.U. Accession for Serbia and Albania

With Russian troops having been in Ukraine for over four years by March, 2026, the case was indeed being made then for the E.U. enlarging as much and as soon as possible by adding new states, including Ukraine. For in addition to making it more difficult for Russia to invade countries in Eastern Europe by turning them into E.U. states, the main way that a federal union, whether the E.U. or U.S., expands is by the accession of new states from what had been sovereign countries. This is why Canada would enter the U.S. as a state, or, more likely, a few states, rather than in a merge. Especially with the Russians having been dropping bombs on Ukrainian people and infrastructure for years, giving up some governmental sovereignty was arguably not too high a price for state governments to accept.  

The full essay is at "On the Glacial Pace of E.U. Accession."

The E.U. without Enlargement: An Oxymoron?

The political debates concerning the accession of candidate states such as Texas, California, Alaska and even Hawaii into the U.S. were long past when the issue of enlargement became salient for the E.U. due to Russia’s unilateral, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. In the American case, surely no one was arguing that the U.S. without being enlarged would cease to be credible, yet in 2025, a government official of the candidate state of Montenegro said as much of the European Union. Even if Filip Ivanovic was merely using rhetoric during an interview on October 4, 2025, even that should at least make sense. Making matters worse, his comments can be interpreted as ultimatums for the E.U. even though nothing binds the E.U. to annexing any future state. In fact, given the veto-power of state officials at the federal level in the E.U., enlargement should arguably come only after internal reform of the E.U.’s basic law concerning the power of the states at the federal level.

The full essay is at "The E.U. without Enlargement."