Positioning candidate countries in the Euro-sphere: internet responses to European enlargement

ABSTRACT

The war in Ukraine has threatened our idea of peace and democracy. The European Union has been caught unprepared and, to show its opposition to Russia, has developed strict economic sanctions. A path to a possible candidacy of Ukraine to the EU is now open. However, the enlargement process has been silenced for a while and still, there are critiques due to ‘nasty’ member states that do not comply with the rule of law. Information online does not help in understanding the accession iter and the current situation. On the list of potential members, at pole position, we find the Western Balkans, which have been long pushed to join the EU and have already developed a huge network of international and European organizations. I will run a Social Network Analysis to outline the position of possible new member countries in the Eurozone according to the media.

KEYWORDS:

• Social network analysis
• European union
• enlargement
• Western Balkans
• member states
• EU-Balkan youth forum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2023.2244382)