How New Enlarged Borders Will Reshape the European Union

Abstract

Debate about the final destination of European integration is again in vogue and it is largely state-centric. The future EU is usually seen as a new type of Westphalian (federal) state with a central government in charge of a given territory with clear-cut borders. An overlap between its functional and geographic borders is also envisaged with few complicating opt-outs, and no variable geometry. However, this article shows that achieving an overlap between the functional and geographic borders of the EU is very unlikely given the huge degree of divergence that will result from the forthcoming enlargement. The article also questions the EU's ability to acquire one of the most fundamental attributes of a Westphalian type of state: a fixed and relatively hard external border. It offers evidence suggesting that an enlarged EU would more closely resemble a neo-medieval empire rather than a neo-Westphalian state with serious practical and conceptual implications.