Vienna – ESI at workshop on EU enlargement

Photo: ESI

ESI’s Kristof Bender presented ESI’s ideas on the future of the EU accession process at a closed-door workshop on “Enlarging without tremors: EU enlargement in the Trump era”, organised by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and Erste Stiftung on 3 March 2026 in Vienna.

Participants included Vivian Hijgen (head of the EU enlargement & neighbourhood policy unit at the Dutch MFA), Björn Linderfalk (head of the South East Europe and EU Enlargement section at the Swedish MFA), Ulrike Hartmann (head of EU enlargement unit at the Austrian MFA),  Dumitru Alaiba (former deputy prime minister of Moldova, Chisinau), Jovana Marovic (BiePAG and former deputy prime minister of Montenegro), Nicu Popescu (former foreign minister of Moldova), Jim O’Brian (former US Assistant Secretary of State), Gustav Gressel (senior researcher at the National Defence Academy in Vienna), Stefan Lehne (senior fellow at Carnegie Europe) as well as Vessela Tcherneva, Jana Kobzova, Leo Litra and Engjellushe Morina of ECFR.

• ESI proposal: “End the turtle race How the EU can address the crisis of the accession process”
• ESI proposal: “Offer the four freedoms to the Balkans, Ukraine, and Moldova For a merit-based EU accession process with a credible goal”