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Enlargement, association, accession – a normative account of membership in a union of states

Abstract This paper deals with the legitimacy of the EU’s external borders and the decision-making rules for changing them. First, while the EU should not indefinitely expand, we can identify no normative grounds for precluding in advance any liberal democratic nation-states from participation in the European project. Second, for those countries having more or less thick legal ties with the EU, or who are otherwise substantially affected by European decision-making, we argue for the institutionalisation of flexible deliberative communities. For closely associated countries, we argue that the EU has special duties in opening the door to membership. Third, we address the legitimacy of the EU’s decision-making procedures for deciding on accession candidates and creating association agreements with non-member states. Here we defend the EU’s current unanimity requirement for the former and its supermajoritarian decision rules for the latter. Finally, we suggest that nationalism is the primary obstacle to the achievement of just inclusion outcomes for non-member states.