Throughout the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue the European Union (EU) has taken a leading role and, in exchange, has been variously supported or criticized for its relatively light touch and the EU’s mandated position as neutral negotiator. With only 22 EU member states (EUMS) recognizing the independence of Kosovo, the EU has had to walk a fine line to encourage the ‘normalization of relations’ between Belgrade and Kosovo without taking a position on what said normalization would look like. While much has been written on the EU’s level of actorness in the case, both as an external actor in negotiations and through its capacity building operations in Kosovo (Barcani 2019; Noutcheva 2020), there has not yet been a relational study of the EU’s underlying capacity to act in this area. Thus, this represents a prime case study to both refine relational understandings of EU actorness (Bremberg and Borg 2020), as it has been so constrained due to interlocking relations of the EU and EUMS. In its findings, this paper corroborates results from non-relational approaches and finds that adopting a relational approach provides a more robust explanation for the EU’s challenges in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

The European Union is again dealing with the issue of enlargement. Russia’s attempted full-scale invasion of Ukraine injected new energy into the EU’s enlargement process that had witnessed an almost standstill since Croatia’s accession in 2013. The paper suggests that existing integration theories fail to grasp the enlargement dynamic while being EU-centric. Even though European integration theories initially were anchored in theories of international relations they later developed increasingly away from the ‘problematic of the international’.

The paper elaborates on an approach that utilises the concept of ‘interaction’ at four levels. At the most general level, the model explores how the culture of interaction present in the international system affects the enlargement process. On the next level, it explores how the process is linked to the interaction pattern between the EU and its immediate surroundings. The third level explores interactions between EU member states and candidate countries. The fourth level is devoted to the EU's internal interaction culture.

The paper revisits the 2004/2007 big Eastern enlargement of the EU to demonstrate the framework and suggests the cruciality of the culture of liberal world order and rule-based interaction for the process. It then examines the present situation and outlines a research agenda based on the framework for the ongoing enlargement process.

How neutrality towards statehood shaped the dimensions of EU actorness in Kosovo? This article offers an understanding how neutrality towards statehood of Kosovo was employed by the EU to seize opportunities, shape its ability and legitimise its role in Kosovo. It evidences the variations of the principle of “naturality towards statehood” and catalogues how neutrality is applied throughout EU activities in Kosovo. Kosovo's relations with the EU are unique and atypical. ‘Unique’ because of Kosovo’s long-standing quest for statehood running alongside to its democratic state-building and accession process. They are ‘atypical’ due to the novel legal pathways and policies that the European Union (EU) and Kosovo had to undergo to address the lack of consensus among EU Member States in relation to the recognition of Kosovo. Understanding these unique and atypical features requires not only the study of the legal process linked with state-building within Kosovo. It also questions the role and policies of the EU in conflict management and state-building process in Kosovo, and signal how these features impacted the variations and limitations of EU actorness. Partially, the literature about EU actorness in state-building process in Kosovo highlights the strategies through which EU institutions and the Member States applied to overcome internal constrains related to non-recognition of Kosovo by five EU member states. The findings reveal that the EU’s strong actorness in Kosovo was partially made possible by agreeing that diversity on recognition should not impede the EU unity in engagement. The studies moreover confirm that EU was constrained to apply the available toolbox when engaging with Kosovo due to the nature of contestations that stem from individual positions of five EU Member States. That being the reason why the EU's approach towards Kosovo, compared to other Wester Balkans countries, is modelled through policies that ensure an engagement continuum but that are, by their very nature, depicted as neutral vis a vis Kosovo statehood. Neutrality, developed into an EU mantra that serves a dual purpose. It is a legitimizing principle and an authorization mechanism to ensure the EU engagement with Kosovo, and vice-versa. This paper demonstrates that neutrality has no fixed definition and is broadly applied when shaping the EU's involvement in Kosovo. The article elucidates variations of neutrality and explains how neutrality was utilized by the EU and specific member states to authorize the EU missions in Kosovo and keep the latter part of the EU enlargement process.