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.

Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg have called on the European Commission to establish a specific EU renewable-energy target for 2040 as Brussels prepares the next stage of the bloc’s climate and energy legislation.

The three governments have written to Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen arguing that a post-2030 renewables target would give investors greater certainty, accelerate deployment and reduce European dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Their intervention comes as the Commission prepares a new renewable-energy framework covering the decade after 2030.

The EU currently has a legally binding target requiring renewable sources to account for at least 42.5 per cent of final energy consumption by 2030, with an ambition to reach 45 per cent.

There is, however, no equivalent renewables target for 2040.

The European Commission says it is preparing a post-2030 renewable-energy framework for adoption before the end of this year. It is intended to complement the Union’s wider climate legislation and provide guidance for the next decade of energy investment.

Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg want that framework to contain a numerical target rather than rely solely on the EU’s overall greenhouse-gas reduction objective.

The proposal creates a policy divide with governments that want Brussels to use a broader definition of low-carbon or “clean” energy.

France, Sweden and Finland are among countries that have supported an approach allowing nuclear generation to contribute alongside renewable sources towards European decarbonisation targets.

France in particular operates the EU’s largest nuclear fleet and has repeatedly argued that European energy legislation should treat nuclear power according to its low carbon emissions rather than exclude it from frameworks designed specifically around renewable technologies.

Luxembourg, by contrast, has long opposed nuclear energy and has raised concerns about radioactive waste, safety and the financing of new reactors.

The argument is therefore not simply about the scale of the 2040 ambition. It concerns the structure of European energy investment over the next 15 years.

The Commission’s existing renewable-energy rules set the 2030 floor at 42.5 per cent, almost double the share recorded at the beginning of the decade.

Renewables accounted for 26.2 per cent of EU energy consumption in 2025, according to Commission figures.

Investment will have to increase substantially if the Union is to meet its existing target before any higher post-2030 requirement is introduced.

Grid capacity is another constraint. Wind and solar generation can be built faster than many traditional power stations, but projects increasingly depend on new transmission lines, interconnectors, storage and distribution infrastructure.

EU Today reported in June that member states were resisting greater Commission control over cross-border electricity-grid planning, illustrating the institutional difficulties surrounding an expansion of European electricity infrastructure.

The latest initiative also sits alongside the EU’s legally binding 2040 climate target.

In March, the Union formally approved legislation requiring net greenhouse-gas emissions to fall by 90 per cent from 1990 levels by 2040. EU Today reported on the final approval of the 2040 target, which is intended to bridge the gap between the bloc’s 2030 commitments and climate neutrality by 2050.

How that 90 per cent reduction is achieved is now moving to the centre of the policy debate.

For Spain and Portugal, greater renewable generation is also tied to their ambitions to expand electricity exports from the Iberian Peninsula into the rest of Europe. Limited interconnection capacity across the Pyrenees has historically restricted those flows.

The Commission’s post-2030 framework will therefore have consequences beyond environmental policy. It will influence investment decisions in power generation, grids, industrial electrification, hydrogen, storage and manufacturing.

The political question confronting the Commission is whether those decisions should be driven by a dedicated renewable-energy benchmark or by a technology-neutral emissions objective under which nuclear and renewable generation compete for investment.

With the 2040 climate target already fixed in law, the next dispute is increasingly about the energy system that will be built to reach it.

France has called for money collected through European Union fines against Google to be used to reduce national contributions to the EU budget as governments negotiate the bloc’s next seven-year financial framework.

Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad said proceeds from penalties imposed on the US technology company should be treated as EU revenue and used to lower the sums governments must pay into the common budget.

The proposal comes as negotiations intensify over the 2028–34 Multiannual Financial Framework, for which the European Commission has proposed expenditure of almost €2 trillion.

Haddad referred to about €4.6 billion in revenue associated with Google penalties and interest.

The proposal is less radical in budgetary terms than it first appears because fines that become final already enter the EU budget as “other revenue”.

The Commission’s explanation of EU budget revenue states that gross national income-based contributions act as the balancing element of the budget after customs duties, VAT-based resources and other revenues — including fines on companies — are taken into account.

Higher income from definitive competition fines can therefore reduce the amount required from national governments.

France is pressing for that mechanism to be applied clearly to the Google proceeds at a time when governments are seeking ways to limit increases in their national payments.

Google has accumulated substantial EU penalties through both competition law and the Digital Markets Act.

In July, the European Commission fined Google €890 million under the Digital Markets Act in two separate decisions.

A €460 million penalty concerned the Commission’s finding that Google gave preferential treatment to its own services in search results. A further €430 million fine concerned restrictions affecting developers’ ability to direct users towards alternative purchasing channels outside Google Play.

Google has contested elements of the EU enforcement regime and has continued legal proceedings over Commission decisions.

EU Today has followed the dispute closely. In September, Google began changing European search results following the DMA enforcement action, while earlier Commission measures generated a wider dispute with Washington over European regulation of US technology groups.

The French budget proposal shifts the issue from regulation towards public finance.

EU governments are currently divided over the Commission’s proposed 2028–34 budget, which averages about 1.26 per cent of EU gross national income.

Germany, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Austria are among governments seeking substantial reductions in the proposed spending level.

EU Today reported this month that five large net contributors were demanding cuts of several hundred billion euros from the Commission proposal.

France also faces a sharp increase in its projected contribution.

Against that background, governments are looking at both expenditure reductions and new revenue streams that could limit demands on national treasuries.

The wider negotiations cover possible EU “own resources” — revenue that flows directly or indirectly to the European budget rather than being provided through conventional national contributions.

Existing resources include customs duties, a VAT-based contribution, a plastics contribution and national payments calculated according to gross national income.

The Commission has also proposed additional sources linked to carbon pricing and other EU policies.

EU Today has previously examined how EU leaders are searching for new revenue sources for the €2 trillion budget while attempting to finance defence, competitiveness, migration, agriculture, cohesion programmes and support for Ukraine.

Company fines differ from permanent own resources because their size is unpredictable and depends on enforcement decisions and subsequent legal proceedings.

A large fine can provide a one-off boost to EU revenue, but it cannot readily finance recurring expenditure across a seven-year financial framework.

Definitive fines have nevertheless affected member-state contributions before. Commission budget amendments have explicitly incorporated competition penalties as additional revenue, reducing the amount that must be raised elsewhere.

France is now seeking to ensure that the Google proceeds are reflected directly in the sums demanded from national budgets.

The proposal comes before another round of negotiations over the Multiannual Financial Framework, where the size of the budget remains unresolved.

With agreement requiring unanimity among all 27 governments, even relatively small sources of additional revenue are becoming part of the bargaining over who ultimately pays for the EU’s expanding spending commitments.