Brussels is working on a way to bring candidate countries into the institutions before they are formally members. Under plans being considered by the European Commission, countries such as Montenegro and Albania could send a commissioner to Brussels in the final stage of their journey, after signing an accession treaty but before every EU country has ratified it.
The idea appears in draft documents that have circulated in Brussels. It would give candidates a bigger role during the least predictable part of the process. Ratification by all 27 national systems can take years, particularly if elections change the political landscape in the meantime.
The Commission will present its enlargement policy review in Strasbourg on Tuesday 6 October. An earlier report had pointed to 30 September; that date was wrong. Leaders will then discuss enlargement at their summit on 15-16 October.
Internal documents describe a package built around a simple trade. A larger EU needs to decide things faster, so Brussels wants less consensus and more qualified majority voting, including on security and defence, sanctions, human rights and enlargement itself. The same papers propose ending unanimity at every stage of accession, which would take away the national veto that has repeatedly stalled Ukraine's path, and adding new safeguards against democratic backsliding.
There is a catch. Von der Leyen needs the unanimous agreement of all 27 governments to reduce the use of unanimity.
The President is spending this week in the region. She started in Tirana on Wednesday, where she said "the goal is within reach" but urged Albania to stay focused on reforms in the judiciary, the electoral system and the environment. Albania has opened all its negotiating clusters and, according to reports, closed three chapters by July. She visits Pristina and Podgorica today and Skopje tomorrow.
Two capitals are missing from the itinerary. Belgrade and Sarajevo are excluded because Bosnia and Herzegovina votes on 4 October and Serbia on 25 October, and relations with Belgrade are tense.
The package is an attempt to make enlargement credible on both sides. Candidates get a promise that the last mile will not take a decade. Existing members get a promise that a bigger club will not be a more paralysed one.
Both halves are hard to sell. Governments that guard their veto will be asked to give it up before the newcomers arrive, and a commissioner without a full vote raises awkward questions about what "membership" means. Watch how the 27 react between 6 October and the leaders' summit nine days later.
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