We Are (Not) a Family? Analysis of Argumentation in Favor of Eu Enlargement in the Western Balkans after the 2003 and 2018 Summits

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the change in EU rhetoric on enlargement to the Western Balkans using analysis and comparison of the arguments of EU officials and strategic documents, which are closely related to the Union's enlargement policy to the Western Balkans, after the European Council summits on the enlargement of the Union, in 2003 and 2018. Following the fundamental tendency to enlarge the Union in the context of the common foreign and security policy, European officials articulated this differently in the context of the two summits. While during and after the first Summit, the European Union was presented in various discursive representations as a highly successful political community capable of attracting countries to adapt to its strict rules and norms to achieve the possibility of integration; during the second Summit, in 2018, the importance of the accession of the Western Balkan countries to the Union was persistently emphasized. In this way, the patronizing discourse present in rhetorical representations during and after the first Summit was replaced by the discourse according to which the European Union insists on the accession of these countries to the Union, regardless of the complete fulfillment of previously set normative criteria. The reason for that is the growing influence of China in the Western Balkans and the growing Russian appetite for power and political action in this region.