Enlargement Discourse after Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

How has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affected EU enlargement? Whilst support for Ukraine has clearly increased since the full-scale invasion, we know less about the EU’s position towards other candidates. We address this question by analyzing plenary debates in the European Parliament (EP). Revisiting the mechanism of ‘rhetorical entrapment’ (Schimmelfennig 2001) first posited in the context of the EU’s 2004 Eastern enlargement, we expect EP’s positions to reflect the need for discursive consistency, making it difficult for MEPs to endorse Ukraine’s membership prospects without also supporting other candidate countries. Drawing on an original dataset of over 1’300 hand-coded enlargement statements from the EP’s 9th term (2019-2024), we show that Russia’s invasion indeed coincides with a generalized reinvigoration of the EP’s enlargement discourse that extends beyond Ukraine and benefits in particular those Eastern partnership candidates that share Kyiv’s EU ambitions. Our empirical analysis highlights discursive differences between mainstream and radical party groups and shows that it is particularly MEPs from Central and Eastern Europe who drive the renewed salience of enlargement post-invasion. Our findings shed light on the impact of the Russian invasion on the EU’s enlargement policy and hold important implications for the likelihood of seeing renewed discursive support translate into effective steps towards the accession of new member states to the EU.