Post by Matija Aron Lojpur

Last week's "Enlargement Super Tuesday" was a major milestone, marking the largest set of accession conferences in over twenty years. 🇲🇪🇦🇱🇺🇦🇲🇩 It is also a timely moment to remember that EU accession does not end with closed chapters nor the signing of an accession treaty. Once any country or group of countries completes those steps, one major political hurdle remains - ratification by all 27 current member states.   In today's turbulent and polarized political environment, this is not a given and the risk it represents should not be underestimated. This is why, in our recently published policy brief "De-risking the EU Accession Debate", my colleague Jovica Jović and I tried to look at this problem and see what measures the EU institutions and member states could take to reduce the risk of a failed ratification, which could have serious negative impacts.   A big thank you to Professor Simon Schunz for his guidance, to colleagues from the Tirana Campus for their review and to Professor David Phinnemore for his valuable feedback on our initial idea.   Feel free to circulate the brief and share your thoughts below! https://lnkd.in/eKyMw6NG