POLITICS
EU’s biggest expansion in two decades
February 6, 2018 - The EU Commission publishes a paper setting out the prospect of membership to six new countries by 2025 as it seeks to breathe new life into the bloc, tighten controls on migration and counter Russian influence in the Balkans - Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
European diplomats say the bloc’s biggest single expansion in two decades is crucial to tighten the embrace between Brussels and nations that emerged from the collapse of Yugoslavia, plus neighbouring Albania. But “enlargement fatigue” after the 2008 financial crisis, as well as Brexit, have cast doubt on its prospects.