Tirana: The non-paper that Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia circulated to other member states on 20 May reopens an argument the bloc has been having with itself since the 2003 Thessaloniki promise. The five capitals propose merit-based, step-by-step access to the European single market for Western Balkan candidates, with chapter-by-chapter alignment serving as the test for participation in specific sectoral programmes. The proposal arrives at the same moment the Commission is finishing the implementation review of the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, and as a parallel debate has reopened on how to integrate Ukraine and Moldova into European structures ahead of full membership. The convergence of these files matters because it suggests the bloc is accepting that the traditional accession model has stopped delivering, and that what comes next will be neither fast-tracked enlargement nor a static neighbourhood.

The Albanian capital reads the non-paper with cautious encouragement. Tirana has been the fastest mover in the Western Balkans cluster, with screening of negotiating chapters now in advanced stages and cluster-by-cluster opening discussions running on a credible cadence. Albanian officials have argued for years that the political asymmetry between candidate effort and accession reward is the principal source of political fatigue across the region. The five-country proposal, modest in its ambition but procedurally specific, addresses that asymmetry without requiring a treaty change. Sectoral participation in the single market for transport, energy and electricity, the digital single market and parts of the critical raw materials policy would offer concrete deliverables to populations that have lost patience with abstract progress.

The architecture of the proposal is the analytically interesting part. Rather than treating single-market participation as the endpoint of accession, the five capitals would make it a partial reward for verified legislative alignment in specific clusters. A candidate that has fully aligned with the energy acquis would receive associated access to the internal electricity market, participation in the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators and Connecting Europe Facility funding in that sector. A candidate aligned with transport rules would obtain Trans-European Network access, regulatory equivalence on operator licensing and participation in CEF Transport corridors. The model converts cluster closure from a paper milestone into a tangible benefit. It also gives the Commission a tool to reward progress in countries where bilateral disputes have stalled full accession.

Two risks deserve close attention. The first is incentive distortion. If sectoral access becomes the reward, candidates may rationally invest in the technically easiest clusters first, deferring the politically difficult chapters on judiciary, fundamental rights and anti-corruption that the bloc has identified as binding fundamentals. The Commission’s enlargement methodology was redesigned in 2020 precisely to prevent this sequencing. The non-paper would need to retain the fundamentals as a precondition for any sectoral access, and the drafting on this point will determine whether the proposal accelerates reform or routes around it. The second risk is institutional. Single-market participation without political representation creates an awkward intermediate status that has historically been the source of complaints from European Free Trade Association states. The Commission would need to set out clearly which decision-making bodies candidates would attend, in what capacity and with what voice on rule-making they have not yet agreed to apply.

The Ukrainian and Moldovan dimension complicates the calculation. Chancellor Merz’s intervention earlier this week, calling for innovative solutions for integration of Ukraine, the Balkans and Moldova, suggests German political support is gravitating toward a single architecture that covers all current candidates. That convergence has policy logic. The rule of law and judicial reform challenges in Tirana, Pristina, Sarajevo and Kyiv share important structural features. But it also creates political risk, because Balkan capitals have argued for two decades that their files should not be hostage to Eastern enlargement. The Commission’s recent communications have tried to keep the tracks separate while acknowledging their convergence. Whether the non-paper survives translation into a Commission communication will reveal whether the bloc has settled on a twin-track approach or whether the files will be fused.

For the candidate region’s capitals, the immediate task is operational. The acquis alignment work that single-market access would reward requires legislative throughput, administrative capacity and political stamina that several candidates have already proved capable of delivering. The non-paper would not relieve them of that burden, but it would, for the first time in years, attach a credible reward to it. The five-country group has tactically chosen to circulate the document ahead of the General Affairs Council that prepares the June European Council, where enlargement is back on the agenda after a long absence. Whether the Council can convert the proposal into a formal Commission instruction before the summer recess is the test that the next month will set.