On Tuesday, June 23 2026, OBCT and Re-ACT Lab gathered high-level policy makers and experts to discuss in the webinar "Gradual integration into the EU: Pathways for the Western Balkans vis-à-vis the Eastern Trio Countries", to assess the legal and financial mechanisms dictating the future of European Union enlargement.

Organised under the framework of the InteGraLe Project funded by the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the event shed light on how the EU can turn gradual integration into a functional reality before full membership is achieved. 

Moderated by Gentiola Madhi, the panel dissected how the EU’s enlargement policy—dramatically re-energised following Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine - has fundamentally transformed from a stagnant, procedural exercise into an indispensable strategic instrument for European security.

However, as the discussion revealed, operationalising a functional "gradual integration" pathway requires resolving a profound structural disparity between candidate regions.

Federico Paolini, Desk Officer for enlargement at the Directorate General for Europe within the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, opened the session by outlining a clear, forward-looking stance on continental unification. Paolini emphasised that enlargement momentum is now tangible across multiple tracks, pointing to the opening of the first negotiating clusters with Ukraine and Moldova, Montenegro's provisional closing of 16 chapters, and Albania's recent fulfilment of interim rule-of-law benchmarks. 

According to Paolini, Italy’s acceleration strategy rests on three primary pillars:

• Deepening Gradual Integration: Bringing forward the tangible economic benefits of the Single Market before full membership is finalised.

• Simplifying Methodology: Reforming the negotiating architecture to bypass bilateral deadlocks while ensuring strict equal treatment to preserve the process's transformative power.

• Strategic Communication: Making the mutual advantages of a wider Union explicitly clear to citizens to counter pervasive disinformation campaigns.

Providing the operational viewpoint of the European Commission, Zoé Gaspar, Legal and Policy Officer at DG-ENEST focusing on the Western Balkans, explained that gradual integration is being rolled out via step-by-step single market access coupled with performance-based financial backing. Candidate countries are being integrated into EU agencies - such as Europol and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) - and granted wider access to programs like Horizon Europe and Erasmus+.

However, Gaspar illustrated how disparate legal foundations create stark execution timelines in practice, highlighting the "Roam Like Home" framework as a key example. While fee-free roaming successfully entered into force for Ukraine and Moldova on January 1, 2026, the Western Balkans are lagging behind, with negotiations only authorised to begin following a Council mandate on June 4, 2026.

Any permanent resolution requires navigating parallel bilateral trade agreements or Council unanimity to amend existing protocols.

Sokol Zeneli, Director of Research and Programmes at Re-ACT Lab, provided a structural diagnosis of this legal friction, introducing the concept of the "Integration Paradox".

Zeneli argued that while the Western Balkans have held an official membership perspective for over two decades under older Stabilisation and Association Agreements (SAAs), the Eastern Trio operates under newer Association Agreements and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs). Ironically, the DCFTAs—originally designed as an alternative to full membership -provide a much deeper, more dynamic, and legally enforceable pathway into the Single Market than the SAA frameworks.

Zeneli characterised the EU's recent Growth Plan for the Western Balkans as an impressive "policy improvisation" or "financial patch" rather than a permanent structural upgrade. To bridge this gap without reopening untouchable treaties, Zeneli outlined three concrete recommendations: passing binding implementing protocols directly via SAA Councils, converting the temporary Growth Plan into a permanent pre-accession architecture, and expanding multilateral sectoral instruments like the Energy Community Treaty. 

Raffaella Coletti, Senior Researcher at CNR Issirfa, shifted the focus to the financial underpinning of enlargement within the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) proposals published in July 2025. The new budget structure officially integrates the pre-accession architecture into a broader external action envelope called "Global Europe".

• Enlargement Funding: The geographic pillar for Europe Enlargement and Neighbourhood is initially allocated €43.2 billion—marking a 37% increase over the previous programming cycle.

• The Ukraine Allocation: A separate, highly flexible funding line of €100 billion is earmarked exclusively for Ukraine to handle its evolving context.

• Mid-Cycle Accession Flexibility: The budget incorporates specific "flexibility instruments" to smoothly shift a country's funding lines from pre-accession aid to structural member state funds if an accession occurs mid-cycle.

Coletti highlighted that the proposed overhaul of the EU's Cohesion Policy - arguably the most far-reaching recasting of the budget in 35 years - fundamentally mirrors the performance-based approach of the Western Balkans Growth Plan. Under the new model, traditional regional indicators are replaced by National and Regional Partnership plans that tie funding directly to structural reforms.

While civil society organisations from the Western Balkans and Moldova issued a joint appeal in October 2025 demanding a tightly ring-fenced enlargement envelope, the European Council reached an agreement on the overall operational framework of the Global Europe instrument on June 16, 2026. Detailed financial negotiations are slated to continue in the coming months under the incoming Irish presidency.

The panel concluded with clear consensus: while gradual integration offers innovative, practical milestones to avoid trapping candidate states in a perpetual "waiting room," these mechanisms are stepping stones, not substitutes. Legal automation and robust financial frameworks must remain firmly tethered to a credible, merit-based path toward full EU membership.

The comprehensive research papers prepared by the panelists will be officially co-published in English by OBCT and Re-ACT Lab in early July 2026 on their respective web platforms.

Re-ACT Lab promotes research and innovation as a means to advance governmental and policy-making reforms in Kosovo and regionally.