Speech of Commissioner Marta Kos at the Enlargement Forum

How do we ensure that wars in Europe are forever sent to the history books? How do we protect our democracies from autocratic tendencies? How do we maximize our ability to act; take control of Europes own destiny; and decide our own future?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, we Europeans face many of those same questions as the founders of our Union in the 1950s.

We have partially answered those questions in the past.

In the 1980s, we stabilized new democracies, when Greece, Spain and Portugal joined our Union.

In the early 2000s, we did the same and widened stability and prosperity, when much of Central and Eastern Europe joined the Union.

Today, as we are again preparing for new members, we are doing it again, driven by questions of peace, democracy and security.

At each of these defining moments in our recent history, enlargement policy played a central role.

Today, once more, we need to push back against forces that aim to destabilise our continent. 

We need to clean up our continent from autocracies.

We need to defend our space of freedom and democracy.

And, once again, we are looking at enlargement policy to provide the answers, to fill the gaps of prosperity, freedom and stability across our Europe.

And close the gaps exploited by our adversaries, human traffickers and criminals alike.

But enlargement policy has not only been a driver for change in our candidate countries.

It has also been the fire starter to look at ourselves and provide answers to the concerns of our citizens. Be it about our social and economic models, migration, corruption, or organised crime.

Despite all what enlargement has brought to our continent – or perhaps exactly because it is a force that drives change - enlargement comes too often with negative associations.

At this critical juncture for Europe, we need to break these associations.

And provide credible answers “to do it right” and ensure that a larger Union makes Europe stronger.

So how do we do it right?

How can we finish the job and complete the unification of Europe?

This is why I am so pleased to stand here in front of you for the first Enlargement Forum.

These fundamental questions about Europes future require an open debate.

A debate in which everyone who wants, can have a voice.

Governments and civil society.

European and national parliaments.

Current and future member states.

This Forum is part of our response: we want this debate. And we want it now.

Overall, 2025 was a good year for enlargement. A year when a lot moved forward.

There have been significant advances on the EU path achieved so far by Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine.

This shows that reforms pay off.

The EU has also stepped-up gradual integration, including through the Ukraine Facility and the Growth Plans for the Western Balkans and Moldova.

This is already making the European Union a lived reality in candidates today.

And we need to keep pace with the geopolitical urgency of our time.

I see three strands of our work as we move forward.

First, any progress we make with our future Member States must be credible.

We need align the acquis in a qualitative way.

And we need to implement it effectively.

There can be no shortcuts.

I am often asked: Will those geopolitical arguments mean we should turn a blind eye and get new members no matter what?

No, it is exactly the opposite.

When democratic structures are weak or the rule of law is defect, it can open the door to malign influence, to corruption, and to organised crime.

Our Union is built on trust amongst its members.

Successful enlargement can only happen when there is trust, based on merits.

Second, the EU needs to get ready for new members.

We are currently working on a pre-accession “readiness review”.

We need to know what the impact of future enlargement will be on key policy areas, our budget and our governance structures.

And we need to provide strong answers to the concerns and worries of our citizens. What enlargement means for our model of social protection? How can it strengthen the control of our borders? How do we ensure respect for rule of law after accession? And how will we ensure a smoothly and effectively operating Union?

We need to have an open discussion about what kind of safeguards we will write into future accession treaties. To assure our citizens that the integrity of our Union is protected.

There must be safeguards that go unnoticed to our new member states, when everyone respects their responsibilities.

But they must equally be safeguards that can bite hard, when new member states do not respect those same rules.

At the same time, getting ready for new member states means stepping up our communication efforts: to bring the discussion about the benefits and challenges of enlargement to national debates.

Two thirds of Europeans tell us they are currently not informed enough.

This is a problem we must reverse.

This is a shared responsibility with our member states.

Third, it is time to enlarge Enlargement.

Candidate countries take time to reform.

And sometimes, our member states take time to decide.

Time which todays world does not grant us any longer.

If we do not act swiftly and with determination, we risk losing control of security and stability on our own continent.

When my country, Slovenia, prepared for EU membership, this was mainly seen through the prism of prosperity.

Today, it is also a question of security.

We see that if our neighbours choose a European future, they come under attack.

Today, our candidate countries are looking towards the EU to shield them from these attacks.

We must do this by making European integration a reality.

Today. Not tomorrow.

This touches some of the core elements of the European Union. From the Single Market to energy and security.

In the area of defence, it is one of our future member states, Ukraine, that is driving us forward and makes us take integration forward in ways unimaginable in the past.

We are already making Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans part of pan-European value chains. To reduce risk and attract investment.

And by 2027 Ukraine and Moldova will be integrated into the EU energy market, protecting our future members against Russian energy blackmail.

We should not shy away thinking about the next steps, and how we can integrate our candidate countries in some of our structures too.

Indeed, enlargement has brought us back to the journey we started in the wake of the Second World War.

The fight for open societies, democracies, the respect for law, not the mighty.

Autocratic regimes are not bound by the same moral and legal rules our democracies are built upon.

They are exploiting our openness by fighting an asymmetric game and spending large sums of money on state propaganda and foreign interference.

Nowhere do we see this more clearly than in our candidates.

This is why we are throwing a democracy safety net over our continent. We can, and must, fight back.

In our recently proposed Democracy Shield, we have for the first time included our candidate countries just like our member states.

We can no longer think of defending our democracies at home, in our Union, without defending it in our candidate countries.

The war in Ukraine began when Kyiv started to look towards Europe to consolidate its freedom and democracy.

In Moldova we have just seen an election where Russia unsuccessfully spent hundreds of millions to undermine pro-European democratic forces. For the fifth time since 2020, they failed.

The strategies for hybrid warfare that were first used against democracy in Ukraine and Moldova were later seen in other parts of Europe.

There is no reason to believe that this trend is set to stop anytime soon.

This is why, Ladies and Gentlemen, the need for a renewed discussion about the future of enlargement and an enlarged Union today, is of such paramount importance.

This is why this first Enlargement Forum is so timely.

Let us start the debate. Together. Today.