FES Southeastern Europe Regional Office | Sarajevo

At the European Forum #Alpbach, the question of the past weeks was how Europe wins. 🇪🇺 #enlargement ran through much of the past couple of days. Since 2022, under geopolitical pressure, the 🇪🇺 has turned back to enlargement as a tool to protect itself and advance its interests. 🇺🇦 and 🇲🇩 are candidates in accession talks; there is serious talk of 🇲🇪 joining by the end of the decade. Much of it framed enlargement as an instrument against third actors: 🇷🇺’s invasion and hybrid war, and the influence of 🇨🇳 and even the 🇺🇸. I sat down with Mirna #Jusić, Valentina #Ostojić and Berta #López #Domènech to test one point. Enlargement widens the single regulatory area, with free movement of goods, services, capital and labour. But does it also make people, in the countries joining and those already inside, feel the social side of their lives improving? Only then does Europe’s attractiveness actually work. Mirna’s study on the social dimension of enlargement in the Western #Balkans looks beyond chapters and clusters to how everyday life changes, across labour markets, education, social protection and healthcare. The front-runners, 🇲🇪 and 🇦🇱, have made the most progress, but daily life has shifted far more unevenly than the paper progress suggests. Her conclusion: with better use of the process and better choices, much more is possible. Thanks to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung for the chance to dig into this with participants from across Europe and the world, something too often neglected when we talk about how Europe wins. @FES_SOE @forumalpbach