| As the EU continues its soul-searching exercise to structure its approach to future enlargement, hopefuls outside the bloc now float ‘progressive’ integration as the short-term answer. In mid-October, the European Commission is expected to publish its annual enlargement package with reports on how much progress aspirant countries’ have made towards joining the bloc. Until now these have included the Western Balkan six – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia – as well as Turkey. For the first time, the EU executive’s enlargement package will also include reports on Ukraine, Moldova, who applied for EU candidate status last year, and Georgia, who received a ‘European perspective’. It is safe to say no package has been as eagerly anticipated as the upcoming one, with a silent consensus that the EU’s last summit of the year, in December, could produce potentially significant decisions on future enlargement. Naturally, Brussels and EU member states are now racing to discuss the matter in all constellations possible. A breakfast talk of a group of 10 EU leaders on the sidelines of the June summit in Brussels opened the season for brainstorming on what the bloc’s enlargement could mean for its future. According to several EU diplomats in Brussels, it ruffled quite some feathers – especially with the Czechs, Austrians and Greeks, who were not amused for not having been invited. Now Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday evening (21 August) hosted top officials from the region’s EU hopefuls, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. The informal gathering was meant as a follow-up to the EU’s landmark Thessaloniki summit held more than 20 years ago, which had concluded that “the future of the [Western] Balkans is within the European Union”. But this gathering – one of many different informal formats that have been taking place in recent months – went down less smoothly than expected. | 