European Union expansion: Balkan leaders want timeline for membership

The E.U. final expanded in 2013, when it accepted Croatia, a neighbor to the six present hopefuls. Since then, a cascade of crises — over the economic system, migration, Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic — has pushed enlargement down the bloc’s to-do record. However the prospect of bringing in new international locations raises elementary questions in regards to the identification of the union, its strategic targets and the way it sees itself on the world stage.