The European Commission is considering giving candidate countries wider access to the EU single market, research programmes and industrial cooperation before they become full members, as Brussels prepares a broader overhaul of its enlargement policy.

Under a draft proposal reported on Tuesday, Brussels would offer what it describes as “gradual integration”, extending access to trade, research, innovation and industrial cooperation as individual candidates bring their legislation into line with EU rules and demonstrate that they can enforce them.

The proposal would take considerably further an approach the Commission has been developing for several years. Its existing policy review on pre-enlargement reforms already provides for gradual integration into selected EU policies before accession, including early access to parts of the single market.

According to the reported draft, earlier integration would create new opportunities for EU businesses, reinforce European value chains and reduce strategic dependencies.

“Earlier integration will unlock opportunities for Union businesses, strengthen European value chains and reduce strategic dependencies,” the draft states.

The Commission would determine where sufficient regulatory alignment and enforcement capacity existed to permit deeper participation in research, innovation and industrial cooperation, as well as broader market access.

The arrangement would remain conditional. Candidate countries would not receive unrestricted access simply because accession negotiations had begun.

Instead, the extent of integration would depend on progress in adopting and enforcing EU legislation, as well as cooperation with Brussels on foreign policy, sanctions, investment screening, export controls and the protection of sensitive technologies.

Market access linked to strategic alignment

One of the most significant elements of the proposal is the connection between economic integration and the EU’s wider security policy.

As industrial and market integration deepens, participation in sensitive sectors would have to be accompanied by cooperation on investment screening, export controls, sanctions implementation and protection of sensitive technologies, according to the draft.

Access would also take account of strategic alignment, critical dependencies and a candidate country’s ability to manage risks involving infrastructure and supply chains.

The Commission has already established the principle that early integration into the single market requires both alignment with EU legislation and effective enforcement. Existing arrangements with Ukraine, Moldova and Western Balkan countries have been used to test integration in individual sectors before membership.

The new proposal would expand that model considerably.

It could also increase pressure on candidate countries whose foreign policies diverge from those of the EU, particularly over relations with Russia and China.

Ukraine and Moldova among countries targeted

Ukraine, Moldova, Albania and Montenegro are expected to be offered specific roadmaps intended to accelerate their integration over the coming years.

All four have advanced in the accession process, although at different speeds.

Ukraine and Moldova have moved into substantive negotiations covering the legislation and institutional reforms required for membership. As EU Today reported in June, the process now involves detailed scrutiny of the rule of law, public administration, democratic institutions and the ability to implement EU legislation.

Moldova is already being integrated into selected areas of the European economy. It has joined the Single Euro Payments Area and the EU’s roaming regime, while Brussels has also expanded its participation in European programmes. The Commission said after the EU-Moldova summit in June that gradual integration into the single market was already under way.

Ukraine has similarly been moving towards deeper economic integration through its existing free-trade arrangements with the EU and sector-by-sector alignment with European legislation.

Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has previously said that Brussels intends to accelerate Ukraine’s integration into additional parts of the single market before membership, adding that ideas developed for Ukraine should also be considered for other candidates.

A wider change to enlargement policy

The proposal comes as the EU attempts to resolve a central problem surrounding its current enlargement round: accession can take many years, while the political and economic consequences of keeping candidate countries outside the Union continue to grow.

Croatia, which joined in 2013, remains the EU’s most recent new member.

Several candidates have spent years — and in some cases decades — within the accession framework. Negotiations with Türkiye are effectively frozen, while Serbia, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have experienced prolonged delays.

Brussels is also considering how to protect EU decision-making and rule-of-law standards as membership expands. EU Today reported earlier this year that five member states had proposed additional safeguards for future members, including stronger monitoring and mechanisms intended to prevent individual governments from obstructing EU decisions.

Gradual integration offers a separate response to the same enlargement problem: economic integration would no longer have to wait until every stage of accession had been completed.

The European Parliament has backed the principle of merit-based and reversible gradual integration, including access to parts of the single market for candidates making sufficient progress. Parliament has also stressed that such arrangements should not become a substitute for membership or create different permanent categories of EU states.

Under the Commission’s emerging model, candidates could therefore move progressively into the EU’s economic and regulatory system while accession negotiations continue.

Full membership would remain the stated objective. But a process in which most of the economic advantages arrive only at the end could increasingly be replaced by one in which access is granted sector by sector as candidates meet the required conditions.

The Commission is due to present its assessment of how future enlargement will affect major EU policies, and what changes the Union itself will need to accommodate new members, on 6th October.

French public-sector workers went on strike on Tuesday as demonstrations and school blockades spread across the country, two days before the government is due to present its 2027 budget.

Teachers, firefighters and health workers were among those taking part, with around 170 demonstrations planned nationally. High-school students also blockaded hundreds of schools, extending protests that began over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and conditions in the education system.

The industrial action, accompanied by the traditional violence, places Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s government under additional pressure before ministers present the draft finance and social-security budgets on Thursday, 1st October.

The French Education Ministry reported that 13.71 per cent of teachers participated in Tuesday’s strike across most of metropolitan France and Réunion. Participation reached 15.28 per cent among primary-school teachers and 12.74 per cent in secondary education.

Separate student action affected hundreds of secondary schools.

Protests were reported in Paris, Lille, Lyon, Nice and other cities. Some demonstrations involved clashes with police and damage outside schools, although much of Tuesday’s public-sector action proceeded without major disruption.

The dispute is centred partly on government spending plans.

Trade unions oppose a proposed freeze in the salary index used to calculate public-sector pay and argue that years of inflation have already reduced employees’ purchasing power. Firefighters have also demanded additional resources following the extensive wildfires that struck France during the summer.

The government is preparing its budget against a worsening fiscal background.

France’s public debt has climbed close to 120 per cent of gross domestic product, while the budget deficit remains well above the European Union’s 3 per cent ceiling.

EU Today reported earlier this month that French debt was heading towards 120 per cent of GDP, accompanied by an increase in the premium investors demand to hold French government bonds rather than German debt.

Higher interest rates are adding to the pressure. Debt-servicing costs have become one of the largest areas of central government spending, restricting the room available for tax reductions or additional expenditure.

The government has also reduced its 2026 economic growth forecast to 0.5 per cent.

Finance Minister Roland Lescure has acknowledged that France will miss its earlier deficit target, leaving the 2027 budget with the difficult task of demonstrating a credible path towards stabilising the public finances without provoking further political resistance.

The budget is due to be formally presented on Thursday. The Finance Ministry has confirmed that Lescure, Public Accounts Minister David Amiel, Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou and Health Minister Stéphanie Rist will present the finance and social-security bills following the Council of Ministers.

The argument is taking place while EU fiscal surveillance is itself entering a more demanding phase.

Under the revised Stability and Growth Pact, member states are expected to follow agreed medium-term expenditure paths designed to bring deficits and debt onto sustainable trajectories.

EU Today recently examined how the EU’s fiscal rules face an enforcement test in October, when finance ministers and the European Commission return to national budget compliance. France is one of the countries where implementation will receive particularly close attention because of its debt level, persistent deficit and political difficulty in securing parliamentary agreement for spending reductions.

The domestic parliamentary arithmetic remains difficult. Lecornu’s government does not control an outright majority in the National Assembly, meaning the budget could become the subject of amendments, confidence votes or further negotiations with opposition parties.

The government has previously relied on Article 49.3 of the constitution to pass financial legislation without a conventional parliamentary vote, although use of the mechanism exposes a government to motions of no confidence.

Tuesday’s strikes add another layer to those negotiations. Trade unions have indicated that further action is possible if the budget contains measures they regard as unacceptable. The CGT has demanded changes to planned spending reductions and public-sector pay policy.

The precise scale of the government’s fiscal measures will become clearer on Thursday. For France, the budget will have to address three pressures simultaneously: deteriorating public finances, the EU’s fiscal framework and domestic opposition to further restraint.

Russian troops in occupied Oleshky are confiscating food delivered to civilians by Ukrainian drones and questioning residents found with Ukrainian-supplied products, according to the head of the town’s Ukrainian military administration. The allegations come after Ukrainian forces transported about four tonnes of food and medicines across the Dnipro in one of their largest humanitarian drone operations to date.

Russian forces in occupied Oleshky are taking food parcels delivered by Ukrainian military drones from local residents and treating possession of the supplies as possible evidence of collaboration with Ukraine, according to Tetiana Hasanenko, head of the Oleshky City Military Administration.

Hasanenko said Ukrainian forces had delivered food to the Russian-controlled town by drone on several occasions, but that the latest operation was considerably larger, involving approximately four tonnes of supplies.

In comments published on 30 September, she said some residents managed to collect one or several packages, while others were unable to reach the supplies.

Russian personnel were subsequently taking some of the food from residents, she said.

According to Hasanenko, people found with goods that were not Russian-made were also questioned about where they had obtained them. Residents could then be accused of co-operating with the Armed Forces of Ukraine if Russian personnel concluded that the products had arrived through Ukrainian drone deliveries.

The allegations cannot be independently verified from inside Russian-controlled Oleshky. However, severe food shortages and restrictions on humanitarian access to the town have been independently documented by the United Nations.

Four tonnes carried across the Dnipro

The latest operation took place on 27 September and involved Ukrainian military units working with the Kherson regional authorities.

According to the regional administration, heavy drones transported approximately four tonnes of food and medicines to about 100 locations around Oleshky.

Instead of dropping the cargo directly from altitude, packages were lowered on cables to designated locations.

Units involved included the 30th Marine Corps, the 34th Separate Marine Brigade “Borysfen”, National Guard formations and Ukrainian border guards.

Ukrainian authorities say drone deliveries have become one of the few remaining ways of bringing supplies into the town. The Kherson administration said it had been sending food across the Dnipro by drone since March.

It estimates that around 2,000 civilians remain in Oleshky, including almost 50 children.

EU Today reported earlier this month that residents of Oleshky were facing increasingly severe food shortages as conventional supply routes became progressively more difficult to use.

The town lies on the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro, opposite Ukrainian-held territory around Kherson. The area is exposed to artillery fire, short-range drone operations and extensive mine contamination.

UN documented food shortages

The humanitarian conditions described by Ukrainian officials are consistent with findings published by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

After interviewing more than 20 residents from Russian-occupied communities near the front line, including Oleshky and Hola Prystan, the mission reported in June that thousands of civilians were facing food shortages and inadequate access to medical assistance.

Residents told UN investigators that the security situation had deteriorated considerably during 2025 and 2026.

The last grocery shop in Oleshky had stopped regular operations in January because supplies had run out, according to testimony collected by the UN. For months, residents depended on preserved food and limited private deliveries.

As of 24 June, the UN said no food deliveries had reached the town since 26 May.

Drone attacks and mines have also made attempts to bring supplies into Oleshky dangerous. On 2 June, a civilian convoy carrying food and humanitarian assistance struck a landmine at the entrance to the town, killing one person and injuring three others.

Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power is required to ensure that food and medical supplies are available to the civilian population and to facilitate humanitarian relief when local resources are inadequate.

Pressure for humanitarian access

The deteriorating situation has prompted repeated Ukrainian appeals for international intervention.

The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations recently called on Pope Leo XIV and international humanitarian organisations to support efforts to reach civilians trapped in the town. EU Today reported on the appeal for humanitarian access and civilian evacuation, which was also directed towards the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN member states.

Hasanenko has also alleged that disappearances continue inside the occupied community.

She said one family had recently disappeared after being detained by Russian forces, adding that Ukrainian authorities did not know whether its members were still alive.

The individual case cannot presently be independently confirmed. The UN has, however, documented arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of civilians in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory during the war.

With independent humanitarian organisations unable to operate freely in Oleshky and conventional supply routes severely restricted, Ukrainian forces are increasingly using drones for a role far removed from their conventional battlefield purpose: carrying food and medicines across the Dnipro to civilians who remain behind Russian lines.