European Union Enlargement Policy. The Emergence of Enlargement fatigue and Possible Future Developments

The European Union (EU) today stands at a crossroad. Recent times have been difficult for the EU, where member states have been facing challenging situations and questions regarding European integration. These challenges have arisen in many fields and policies, with one of them being the enlargement policy. Consequently, views of not expanding the EU borders further have been growing, and enlargement fatigue has been used to describe the current situation towards further expansion. The main aim of this study is to explore why enlargement fatigue has emerged in the EU where two hypotheses will be examined and falsified with a discourse analysis method. In addition, possible developments under the EU enlargement policy will be analysed, especially with regard to the expected withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU. The main conclusions are that there are a few contributing factors why enlargement fatigue has emerged in the EU. The current enlargement process will remain a slow one, as it seems that there will be no shortcuts given by the EU. The expected withdrawal of the UK should not have a substantial effect on the proceedings but could mean that the enlargement process will be pushed lower on the agenda in the short term or at least, while negotiations for the terms of withdrawal are taking place. The likelihood of another member state holding a referendum, similar to Brexit seems, at the same time, unlikely while the negotiations are taking place