Associate membership, UK return talk, gradual enlargement: integration in changing shape while the EU's political centre weakens. Read more in our latest newsletter.
Last month, I wrote that European integration doesn’t have to be full-fat EU. The line between full EU membership and non-membership is blurring. Different integration and partnership models are possible.
The past weeks are testimony to this. In her State of the Union speech, Commission President von der Leyen has made Canada the offer of an "associate membership"; a new status that is yet to be defined. Two weeks later, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, laid out a spectrum of options for Britain’s future relationship with the EU, ranging from the status quo and a customs union to participation in the Single Market or even full EU membership (read our analysis). Now, the European Commission has unveiled its pre-enlargement policy reviews, which focus on structured gradual integration, allowing candidate countries to progressively enter EU policy areas before formal accession.
Externally, the EU is going strong: forging partnerships, sealing trade deals, reaching out abroad. It's even finally gearing up for a trade fight with China. But internally, it is becoming more fragile. The German government is weakened by the regional elections (read our analyses on the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin), France is beset by massive student protests and a burgeoning debt problem, Spain has called a snap election on the back of a housing crisis. 2027 will be a crucial European electoral cycle, with elections in France, Italy, Poland and a host of other EU member states.
The paradox is striking. Just as the EU expands its web of relations abroad to hold on to rules and international cooperation, the political centre holding the EU together is becoming less stable. The consequences are yet to be thought out. How tenable are partnerships with a weakened EU? What is to be done with a European Security Council potentially run by illiberal governments? And, perhaps more fundamentally, what does the EU actually want with these new partnerships and deals? The answers are unclear. My colleague Dr. Katharina Emschermann and I made this point in a recent analysis, highlighting that the EU is expanding its foreign and security policy toolbox but lacks a clear sense of purpose.
This tension between an EU growing more ambitious outward and more fragile inward will, it seems to me, be one of the defining themes of the coming year. A space we’ll continue to watch closely.
In the meantime, let me put two things on your radar.
First, I invite you to join our upcoming webinar “Reaching young men”, on Monday 12 October. Based on a new cross-country study of the so-called “manosphere” in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, we will look at how young men engage with political content online, why far-right narratives are proving successful, and what progressive actors can do differently. We will be joined by the study’s author, Dr. Johannes Hillje, alongside Felix Banaszak, Co-Chair of Alliance 90/The Greens, Solène Mesnager of Europe Écologie Les Verts, and our President Jan Philipp Albrecht.
And finally, Brazil. The election there is proving to be nail-biter. Together with our Rio de Janeiro office, we have put together a new dossier to make sense of Brazil’s elections. We look at what’s at stake, what it could mean for Europe, the role women are playing in the election, and the implications for climate policy. I hope it finds your interest.
Read more in our Böll EU 08/2026 Newsletter!
Warm regards,
Roderick Kefferpütz
