Neither the EU enlargement nor the relations with the Western Balkans countries were the topics of the campaign led by Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), who is poised to be the next German Chancellor after his party won Germany’s snap election. Our interlocutors state that the outlines of the foreign policy will be known once the new Government is formed. According to them, Germany will continue to support the EU enlargement, but it will not try to make the process faster.
CDU, together with its traditional partner Christian Social Union, won 28.6% of the vote in the German election on 23 February. In his remarks on election night, Merz stressed that his “absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA”.
Merz has already offered to hold talks with the leadership of the Social Democratic Party of the outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz to discuss possible cooperation. In spite of the fact that Social Democrats won only 16.4% of votes, the party emerged as a potential junior partner in the new government.
On the other hand, Merz insisted that he would not launch any talks with the far-right AfD party, which came second in the elections, receiving 20.8% of the votes.
“In the short term, significant changes in Berlin’s approach to enlargement are unlikely”
Speaking about the implications of the outcome of the German elections for the EU enlargement, Adi Ćerimagić, Senior Analyst at European Stability Initiative (ESI), says for EWB that Friedrich Merz now faces the task of assembling the new ruling coalition.
“His aim is for the new government to start work by the end of April, that is, before Easter, with the Social Democrats as his primary and most likely partner. Details on the coalition’s stance on enlargement will emerge earliest during negotiations and the finalisation of the coalition agreement”, Adi Ćerimagić explains.
According to Ćerimagić, in the short term, significant changes in Berlin’s approach to enlargement and the Western Balkans are unlikely.
“On the one hand, the slow steps in the accession process – opening and closing chapters two to three times annually, and initiatives such as the new Growth Plan, ensure that the EU and Brussels maintain a sense of having somewhat clearly defined policy until the end of 2027. The next host for the Berlin Process, the United Kingdom, has already been decided and this initiative is expected to continue under Merz as well. It does not bring significant financial or political costs for Berlin, but allows it every year to claim modest and small but better than none political and economic successes”, he underlines.
Ćerimagić remarks that, although open to enlargement and accelerating the process, particularly for the Western Balkans, the Social Democrats did not succeed in imposing a concrete enlargement agenda during their time leading the federal government.
“In the new government, they will be the junior partner to the conservatives, who in general remain sceptical about speeding up the process or setting a definitive, even provisional, timeline for the next round of enlargement”, he said.
Ćerimagić clarifies that, at the end of last month, during Merz’s big speech on Europe and foreign policy, he asked Friedrich Merz for his position on enlargement and that the response was interesting.
“He stated that he had no ‘conclusive’ or ‘definitive answer’ but maintained that ‘EU enlargement will take quite some time’ and argued that until it occurs, ‘we need to overcome the strict distinction between being fully outside or fully inside the EU and create a pathway towards full membership’. In a three-minute reply, he explained that he is ‘somewhat influenced by the EEA and EFTA structures we used to have … and by what Schäuble and Lamers once wrote about concentric circles around the EU’. He cited Switzerland as an example, with its Schengen and association agreements, and suggested that this approach should extend to other countries beyond the Western Balkan states”, Ćerimagić remarks.
Our interlocutor adds that “Merz concluded by stating that he is solely seeking ways to integrate European and neighbouring countries more deeply into EU structures and decision-making mechanisms, emphasising that this must not create an impression of second-class membership”, and that he also noted that he had discussed this matter in detail with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“However, unless something big happens, it is unlikely that the EU will feel the need to discuss its strategic position on the EU enlargement before discussions on the next financial framework or some kind of the Growth Plan 2 start. What will then be the mood and positions in Berlin, Paris and elsewhere, is hard to foresee”, Adi Ćerimagić concludes.
“Germany will remain a positive supporter of enlargement but will not be pushy”
Similarly, Franz-Lothar Altmann, an independent German academic and professor of international relations at the University of Bucharest, says for European Western Balkans that foreign politics, and in particular EU enlargement have not been issues in the election campaigns, neither of the CDU/CSU nor of the Social Democrats.
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Very probably these two will form a coalition, and then it will be interesting who will take the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Western Balkans and enlargement will not be on top of the priority list, but anyhow it will take time, maybe until Easter, until a new government is set up, and in the negotiations towards the coalition all issues will be discussed, among those very probably also enlargement policy”, Franz-Lothar Altmann underlines.
According to Altmann, “in principle, Germany will not change its positive orientation towards further enlargement, but the conservative parties may be somehow more cautious and alert how the candidates are willing to perform the necessary reforms”.
“What will also be of interest is how the US foreign policy towards the Western Balkans under the guidance of Richard Grenell (Presidential Envoy for Special Missions), who is said to be the grey eminence behind Vice President Vance’s foreign politics orientation, will look like. Grenell is anti-German and might criticize or even jeopardize German and EU foreign politics on principle grounds. But to repeat, Germany will remain a positive supporter of enlargement but will not be pushy!”, Altmann states.