Commission proposes suspending new members' voting rights for fifteen years after they join

The European Commission adopted its pre-enlargement policy reviews on 6 October 2026, together with a communication titled Preparing for a Wider Union, published as press release IP/26/2075 with an accompanying questions-and-answers document, QANDA/26/2076. The headline conclusion is negative in form and consequential in effect: the reviews find that the Union can accommodate new member states within the existing Treaty framework. No Article 48 revision is proposed. Instead the Commission puts the burden of adjustment on two instruments it can reach without a convention. The first is the accession treaty of each new member, which would carry a new institutional safeguard allowing funding cuts and, in the most serious cases, suspension of voting rights. Euronews reported that the safeguard would remain available for fifteen years after a state joins.

What the package actually is

The reviews are not legislation. They are the Commission's answer to the mandate the European Council set out in its June 2024 reform roadmap, which asked for in-depth policy reviews, and they follow the March 2024 communication on pre-enlargement reforms and the Granada Declaration. President Ursula von der Leyen launched the exercise in her 2023 State of the Union address. According to the Commission, the reviews cover values, policies, budget and governance, and find administrative capacity and implementation to be the recurring constraint across policy areas rather than any treaty obstacle.

Von der Leyen described enlargement as a geopolitical imperative in the Commission's own release. Marta Kos, the Commissioner for Enlargement, framed the finding as the Union being able to accommodate a larger membership while proposing stronger rule-of-law safeguards, targeted arrangements for Ukraine's agriculture and faster institutional decisions. The next operational step is the 2026 Enlargement package, in which the Commission says it will present indicative roadmaps for Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine, provided reform momentum holds.

The fifteen-year safeguard

The institutional safeguard is the substantive novelty. The Commission's questions-and-answers document ties it to serious breaches of Article 2 TEU values and of the principle of sincere cooperation, with available measures extending to temporary suspension of voting rights. Euronews reported that the trigger is breaches that affect the Union's functioning, that funding cuts and vote suspension would be proportionate to severity, and that either the Commission or several member states could start the procedure. Kos told Euronews she did not want to see new Trojan horses in the European Union, and pointed to Hungary's blocking of Ukraine's candidacy after initially supporting it.

Two numbers define the shift. Earlier accession treaties carried safeguards running three years; the Commission now wants a mechanism live for fifteen. Euronews also reported that the text does not settle which decision-making procedure would apply to invoking it, leaving that to the member states. Alongside the institutional safeguard, future treaties would include stronger sectoral safeguards and transitional arrangements covering workers, services, agriculture, funding and participation in Union systems, plus a commitment by incoming members not to use unanimity against decisions on further enlargement or in bilateral disputes.

Candidate capitals read the proposal as tiering. Euronews reported on 7 October that Ukraine's deputy prime minister said any transitional arrangements must be justified, proportionate and time-limited, and that the head of Bosnia and Herzegovina's mission to the EU warned the probation could become a permanent status if member states kept extending it. Kos answered that the measure is temporary and not discriminatory. Because the safeguards are to be tailored country by country in accession negotiations, the leverage sits with the existing members, and a candidate country diplomat told Euronews that Montenegro, the frontrunner, appeared keen to conclude almost at any cost.

Unanimity, trimmed without a convention

On governance the Commission proposes working the Treaties rather than amending them. It recommends using the passerelle clauses to move sanctions, tax fraud and energy fiscal measures from unanimity to qualified majority voting, with safeguards for essential national interests. It recommends qualified majority for the opening of negotiating clusters and for intermediate decisions inside accession negotiations; Euronews counted roughly 150 such intermediate steps currently open to a national veto, while unanimity would remain for granting candidate status and for closing negotiations. The Commission also says it will explore a more effective Article 7 procedure with defined timeframes, and points to enhanced cooperation, available to nine or more member states, as a route to deeper integration among the willing.

Euronews reported that the Commission further proposes ending the one-commissioner-per-member-state practice, under the Lisbon Treaty provision capping the College at two-thirds of the membership with strictly equal rotation, a clause never applied. That is the element most likely to die in the Council. An EU diplomat told Euronews that some things are drafted to be killed, and Euronews reported that both smaller states and France and Germany fear losing weight under a rotation system. The proposals face their first political test at the European Council of 15-16 October 2026.

Money, and what the package forecloses

The budget strand is the most concrete. The Commission says the proposed 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework will contain a revision mechanism triggered by the accession of a new member state, so that enlargement does not require reopening the whole ceiling. Before accession, candidates draw on the Global Europe instrument, which the Commission describes as combining grants, loans and guarantees for tailored pre-accession support; after accession they move to National and Regional Partnership Plans with additional cohesion and agricultural support. Ukraine is singled out for targeted arrangements limiting agricultural support and market access for sensitive products, alongside work to restore its export markets in third countries.

Gradual integration is the reward side of the same conditionality. Candidates would progressively take part in selected parts of the internal market and in closer cooperation in energy, transport, digital and defence, with the Commission to map the available instruments and run annual dialogues. The Commission states that this integration is conditional and reversible. What the package forecloses is the wider institutional debate: by concluding that no treaty change is needed, the Commission has removed the strongest argument for reopening Article 48, and has shifted the discipline it wants onto states that are not yet in the room to object.

Sources

• European Commission — Preparing for a Wider Union (IP/26/2075)
• European Commission — Questions and Answers on the pre-enlargement policy reviews (QANDA/26/2076)
• European Commission — Preparing for a wider European Union (news, 6 October 2026)
• Euronews — New EU members face 15-year probation period after joining the bloc
• Euronews — EU Commission throws down the gauntlet to member states on reforming the bloc
• Euronews — EU hopefuls fear new safeguard plans could create second-class members