THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Towards a new legislative term

PERSPECTIVES FOR FUTURE ENLARGEMENTS OF THE UNION 29 Greek-Cypriot majority and the Turkish-Cypriot minor- ity. A coup took place in July 1974, led by the Greek- Cypriots who announced that they intended to unite the country with Greece. Five days later, the Turkish army invaded the north of the island and remains there to this day. In November 1983, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was declared, only recognised by Tür- kiye, and the island has been divided in two ever since, occupied by the Turkish army in the north. There have been many attempts to reunify Cyprus as a single state, but to date this has not been successful, and the Greek- Cypriot authorities, who hold the Republic’s only inter- national representation, blame Türkiye for this. How- ever, Cyprus joined the EU in the 2004 enlargement and, as we stated in the introduction, the entry of any new state requires approval from all EU Member States, so it seems clear that while this problem is unresolved, it will be practically impossible for Türkiye to join. On the other hand, Türkiye has undertaken more pro- active foreign policy since Recep Tayyip Erdogan became president in 2014, after a previous phase as prime min- ister when he tried to approach the EU, and above all since the attempted coup in 2016. It has even worked independently from NATO, which it joined in 1952, both in Syria and in Libya, trying to get resources from areas of the eastern Mediterranean that are not under its juris- diction. In the war in Ukraine, Erdogan has unsuccess- fully attempted to mediate between the two sides and promote a negotiation, but he has not applied sanctions against Russia as agreed by its allies in NATO and by the EU, and Moscow is clearly able to get around some of these sanctions through Türkiye. It seems that, having been rejected by Europe, he has chosen another path that he believes will be better to defend his interests, although it inevitably distances the country from joining the EU to the point that since Erdogan’s re-election in May, Manfred Weber, leader of the European Popular Party in the European Parliament, declared that the ne- gotiations for Türkiye’s membership should cease. Türkiye has 86 million inhabitants. If it joined the Un- ion, it would be the Member State with the largest pop- ulation and consequently would have a highly signifi- cant weight in the qualified majority voting where this parameter counts, at the same level as Germany. On the other hand, barely 3% of Turkish territory is located in the continent of Europe, although 14% of its population lives there. Türkiye is increasingly projecting towards the Middle East and Central Asia which distances it from Europe. For precisely that reason, if its application is not successful in the end, as seems likely, the EU will have to seek a reinforced associations formula that suits both sides, as suggested by the former French president Nico- las Sarkozy, that might be developed within the frame- work of the recent initiative from the European Political Community, which we will mention later. Western Balkan States In the early 1990s, as a consequence of wars between Yugoslavia’s federal states, it was divided into five in- dependent states: Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Slovenia, the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia - subsequently known as North Macedonia -, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – which later became known as Serbia and Montenegro. When Montenegro became independent in 2006, this made six countries, and with the unilateral declaration of independence in Kosovo, in 2008, they became seven de facto countries, although Serbia has never recog- nised the independence of its former province. The two most developed republics, and closest politi- cally and culturally to Western Europe, are already full members of the Union: Slovenia in 2004 and Croatia in 2013. The other four States: Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, plus Albania – the remaining country on the Balkan mainland – are all candidate countries. Kosovo is excluded because, in ad- dition to internal problems with the Serb minority, it is not a member of the United Nations and five EU States do not recognise its independence and will clearly not approve its application at this point. This will probably not happen without an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo. The current candidates from theWestern Balkans also have another type of relationship with the EU, through the Stabilisation and Association Agreements that, ex- cept in the case of Serbia, pre-date their candidate sta- tus: North Macedonia 2004, Albania 2009, Montenegro 2010, Serbia 2013, and Bosnia-Herzegovina 2015.These