Enlargement and Minority Politics: The unravelling of the EU's transformative power?

With the big enlargement waves in 2004 and 2007, the European Union (EU) officially made minority rights protection part of the joint political agenda. On the basis of criteria adopted in 1993, new member states were required to adopt minority rights legislation not previously imposed on the existing member states. With a few exceptions, most new member states complied in full and developed policies that still until today do not exist in the 'old' member states. Scholars deemed this conditionality approach evidence of double standards and warned that it would potentially create backlash. Nevertheless, the EU has maintained the conditionality approach in the next enlargement processes with the applicant states in the Western Balkans, and new restrictions have dealt several setbacks to these, including a recurrent bilateralism between old foes in the region. This chapter focuses on how enlargement policies were developed and amended over time, how they influenced the Europeanization of the new member states through the transformative power of the Union, and how they contributed to shaping the internal integration of the Union.