IDM Short Insights 54: Will EU Citizens Be Ready for EU Enlargement?
In the latest Short Insights, Sebastian Schäffer and Sophia Beiter report from Cafe Kyiv in Berlin – a one-day conference organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which brought together a wide range of partner organisations working on issues related to Ukraine. The IDM was represented at with a panel entitled “When Ukraine and Moldova Are Ready but Europe Is Not: Why Enlargement Needs EU Citizens”, organised in cooperation with KAS Moldova.
Sebastian Schäffer and Sophia Beiter highlight that while candidate countries such as Moldova and Ukraine are making significant progress in their reform efforts toward EU accession, public opinion within many EU member states remains skeptical about further enlargement. They emphasise the importance of communicating more effectively with EU citizens and fostering informed public debate on the topic.
Transcript:
“We are back in Berlin for Cafe Kyiv 2026 and on the one hand side, while it’s a good thing that this has become some sort of annual exchange of these various stakeholders and institutions, and it becomes institutionalised, it’s also one day before the fourth anniversary of the full scale invasion and we have still not found a solution to bring back peace to the Ukrainian people. Nevertheless, Ukraine has significantly advanced when it comes to EU membership and this is also something that we are going to look at at our contribution here in Cafe Kyiv.
We will also have a look at what EU citizens think about EU enlargement. Are they ready to take in new members into the European Union in the near future? A Eurobarometer from last autumn shows that 56% of EU citizens are in favor of EU enlargement, but the support differs significantly across different EU countries and also regarding different candidate countries. At the same time 67% of EU citizens do not feel well informed about the EU enlargement process. There is still a lot of misinformation when it comes to the benefits and challenges of the EU enlargement.
We will discuss later at the panel Sophia‘s research that she has been doing for the past year on it. We will also discuss it with decision makers. We are very much looking forward to it and we will continue to work on this throughout the year at IDM to contribute a little bit to a sustainable and lasting peace hopefully for Ukraine in Europe and then also contribute to further EU enlargement.”
