4 March, 2025
Tallinn – Quick Impressions by Klara Lindström
Tallinn in February is snowy and vibrant. I travelled here to participate in the annual EU Enlargement Conference, organised by our friends and colleagues at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), a leading Estonian foreign policy think tank. The rapid and dramatic developments in world politics loom in the background, but at the same time, discussions surrounding past and future enlargements serve as a hopeful reminder of the EU’s agency and potential to build peace, security and prosperity in Europe.
Photo: Klara Lindström
It is easy to focus on the failures of Europe while taking its successes for granted, as if they were historical inevitabilities. But the EU’s successful enlargement to countries in Central and Eastern Europe was far from a given. Today, millions of EU citizens in Central and Eastern Europe, including here in Estonia, can live in free societies and contribute to the prosperity of the EU. Enlargement is the most effective and transformative tool that has been devised in Europe to date for securing stability and economic growth on our continent. This time, too, when the EU urgently needs to take responsibility for its security, enlargement can be part of the solution.
Success is not a given. Credible security assurances to the candidate countries, a strategy for resolving bilateral disputes between EU candidates and member states outside the accession negotiations, and additional resources to compensate for USAID funding cuts are three critical and far-from-easy steps to make this enlargement round successful. These and other reforms will require political resolve, leadership, and creativity – something that the EU has demonstrated in past crises. Today’s geopolitical insecurity and the unpredictable future of transatlantic relations, exacerbated by pronouncements from the Trump administration, may provide just the right impetus to double down on reforms, demonstrate political resolve, think creatively, and accelerate the process of EU enlargement.