EU Enlargement

EU Enlargement: Observatory & Integration Readiness Index

As EU enlargement regains momentum, understanding how candidate countries are actually progressing has become more important than ever. Yet the European Commission's annual Enlargement Reports, while comprehensive, are lengthy and difficult to compare across countries and over time.

This report introduces the Integration Readiness Index (IRI), a new analytical tool that transforms the Commission's assessments into a clear, comparable, and easy-to-navigate overview of accession readiness. By translating complex qualitative evaluations into transparent scores and trajectories, the IRI enables policymakers, researchers, journalists, and the wider public to quickly identify where reforms are advancing, where they are stalling, and how countries compare with one another.

Covering the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership countries, and Türkiye, the report highlights distinct patterns of reform performance and accession momentum. While Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine demonstrate sustained progress, other candidates remain constrained by political stagnation, democratic backsliding, or weak reform implementation.

The report shows that political momentum alone is not enough to advance towards EU membership. Lasting progress depends on the alignment of institutional reforms, effective implementation, and continued movement in the accession process.