The European Union revived Turkey’s membership bid on Monday and opened accession talks with Serbia, showing how a migration crisis and Russia’s presence in the Balkans has prompted the EU to rethink plans to stop expanding.
More than a year after EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker said Brussels needed a pause in its policy of admitting new members, events have driven officials to revive membership talks to seek influence and stability abroad. While neither Turkey nor Serbia are likely to join the world’s largest trading bloc in the near future, the EU hopes that formal negotiations on different areas of its “chapters” or rules, will help tackle multiple crises on its borders. “The refugee crisis and terrorism shows us that we are on the same continent, we are facing the same challenges and the more we develop common policies, the better off we will be,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told a news conference.
In July 2014, facing a popular backlash over the millions of people from formerly communist eastern EU nations streaming into western EU economies to get better-paid work, Juncker promised “no new enlargement in the next five years”. But failing states, war, Islamist militancy and a refugee crisis in the EU’s neighborhood have showed the value of trying to engage and push countries towards becoming market economies.