The EU’s shrinking enlargement perspective

Pro-enlargement wording in EU declarations on ties with former Soviet states is set to hit an all-time low at the Riga summit on 21 May.

It might sound like literary criticism, but diplomats fight tooth and nail over the vocabulary of joint statements at the EU’s meetings, every two years, with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

The texts are important markers of where relations are going.

The “Eastern Partnership” policy on closer ties was launche...