The EU is meant to start growing again, but there is still disagreement in some quarters over how to achieve that. Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz is sticking to his proposal for an associated EU membership for Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkan states, namely Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
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Critics complain that this would amount to a “waiting room” or a second-class form of membership. Gunther Krichbaum counters that they apparently have not yet understood the model.
For the Minister of State for Europe at the Federal Foreign Office, it is about a clear commitment. He explains: “Why should we not give these countries, which would then have the status of associated members, of course without voting rights, the opportunity to take part in sessions of the European Parliament? That would not cost us a single euro or cent.”
According to Krichbaum, this would also send a clear signal to China, Russia and other countries and show: “These countries belong with us, to the European Union.”
In this way, EU accession candidates could be made to feel that they are already somewhat “part of the club”, Krichbaum explains. It is important, he says, to bring these states closer and integrate them.
“New tiered system” for EU enlargement
That puts him in line with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, who at the EU–Western Balkans summit in Montenegro in early June called for the process to be speeded up.
Krichbaum too is calling for more speed, but for him this is also the right moment to take a critical look at the method of accession.
He no longer agrees with key parts of the current model: “We organise the accession procedures like a kind of high-jump competition. The bar is set at 1.50 metres, that is the so-called acquis communautaire, all the legal rules, the entire body of EU law at 1.50 metres, and the countries are supposed to clear it. In reality, this acquis communautaire is no longer at 1.50 metres but at 2.10 metres, because over the past ten, twenty years all the legal regulations have been tightened and new rules have been added.”
By way of explanation: the so-called acquis communautaire refers to the entire body of EU law, that is all the applicable laws, rules and obligations that a country seeking to join must fully adopt.
According to Krichbaum, many new rules have been added, for example on consumer protection and environmental protection. The whole framework is no longer comparable with earlier standards. Even 1.50 metres is already a major challenge for the accession candidates. For him one thing is clear: “We need to move away from this high-jump competition.”
He proposes a kind of staircase or tiered system, stressing that it would in no way be a dead end: the “final destination, the terminus, is and remains full membership of the European Union”.
But what about the costs of EU enlargement? Can the EU’s net contributors still shoulder them? Krichbaum believes this is manageable, pointing out that it all happens within the budget and that former recipient countries are now donor countries.
Today’s Poland, for example, cannot be compared with the country it was at the time of accession. “The Polish economy is booming,” says Krichbaum.
That is not the case in all European countries. For Germany, for instance, the growth forecast for 2026 is subdued. This naturally has an impact on its relationship with Brussels. Krichbaum stresses that the scope for manoeuvre is limited. The EU member states will feel this in the still very complex negotiations on the multiannual financial framework for 2028-2034.
New priorities for the future EU budget
Indeed, the countries that are already members of the “EU club” are currently busy discussing the future EU budget. The European Commission’s proposed ceiling stands at 1.7 trillion euros for seven years, Krichbaum explains. Berlin is calling for a drastic cut in the EU budget of 400 billion euros.
For Krichbaum, the key issue is how the money is allocated: where should the priorities lie?
He is calling for a rethink, or rather a fresh start: “If we were reinventing the European Union today, and if we theoretically had a reset button we could press, we would not start with agricultural policy. That was without any doubt the right decision in the second half of the last century. But today it is issues such as security, defence, cybersecurity, but also space, artificial intelligence and competitiveness that are to the fore. All these are areas from which we believe we will derive our prosperity in five, ten, fifteen and twenty years.”
He argues for different priorities and proposes bringing cohesion policy and agricultural policy together under a single heading, in effect a single pillar.
It would then be up to the member states to decide how to set the relative weights. Agriculture would remain important, but the focus would also have to shift to other areas.
Speed is needed here too, just as with EU enlargement. Krichbaum hopes that an agreement on the new EU budget can be reached before the end of the year.
He explains: “I hope so for many reasons, because we may still be able to predict what will happen in the remainder of this year, 2026. But I cannot predict everything that will happen in 2027, and then reaching an agreement could become even more difficult. In other words, it is already complicated enough as it is. I believe we have a strong interest in having the negotiations on the multiannual financial framework truly finalised by the end of this year.”