Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and, this week, I am drilling down on two issues: Hungary and Slovakia threatening the Russia sanctions renewal; plus, various ideas on EU enlargement.
Briefing #1: Hungary And Slovakia Are Playing With The EU's Russia Sanctions Renewal -- Again
What You Need To Know: Hungary and Slovakia are yet again leveraging their vetoes in order to get a handful of Russian individuals removed from the European Union’s visa-ban and asset-freeze blacklist, which was created after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The other 25 EU member states are, on the other hand, countering by suggesting that the list should be renewed just once a year and are suggesting that two other individuals -- seen as legally “weak cases” -- should be delisted instead.
The blacklist, which now consists of over 2,700 individuals and companies, is currently extended every six months -- normally in September and March with the next deadline on March 15. The bloc’s ambassadors had an initial discussion about it on March 3 and are expected to come up with a solution when they meet again either on March 11 or later on March 13.
Deep Background: The issue, however, is being further complicated by the lack of progress on the Druzhba pipeline, which carries oil from Russia to Europe. With the flow of oil interrupted since late January to landlocked Hungary and Slovakia -- which still enjoy an exemption from EU sanctions on Russian oil -- both Bratislava and Budapest have blocked the 90 billion euros ($105 billion) loan to Ukraine and the 20th sanctions package on Russia. The Central European nations are blaming Kyiv for not wanting to repair the Soviet-era pipeline that crosses Ukraine on its way to the EU, while Kyiv contends that the structure was damaged by Russian bombardment and that continued assaults by the Kremlin on Ukrainian energy infrastructure make any repairs complicated and dangerous. While not immediately linking the renewal of these sanctions to the pipeline, an EU official told RFE/RL under the condition of anonymity that “everything hangs together” and that the resumption of operations of the Druzhba pipeline in the coming days or even a European-led mission to observe the damage to it could move this sanctions file forward.
Drilling Down:
- The practice of leveraging the veto to get individuals delisted has been used by Hungary at almost every six-month extension. In March 2025, oligarch Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor, Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyaryov, and Gulbahor Ismailova, the sister of billionaire tycoon Alisher Usmanov, were removed from the blacklist in this way.
- According to several individuals familiar with the file but who are not permitted to speak on the record, Bratislava has renewed its push to try to get Usmanov and Russian-Israeli oligarch Mikhail Fridman removed, just as was the case when the sanctions were debated and renewed the last time, in September 2025. On top of that, Budapest is angling to get oligarchs Dmitry Mazepin, Pyotr Aven, Musa Bazhaev, and Albert Avdolyan off the list. Back in September, the other 25 EU member states managed to push back by countering that they were asking for a 12-months rollover instead of the usual six and that no so-called “political delistings” should occur.
- Additionally, those 25 countries were also helped at the time by the United States reportedly pushing Hungary and Slovakia to step back, as well as a ruling in the European Court of Justice stating that sanctions on another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, were legally sound -- thereby strengthening the case for not removing any individual seen as close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the end, none of the people suggested by Hungary and Slovakia were delisted but the renewal period remained six months.
- Now, those 25 nations are trying to repeat the trick of a 12-month rollover threat, along with adding two other names to be removed instead. According to a document seen by RFE/RL, the proposal is to delist Maya Bolotova and Niels Troost. These two names are seen as “weak cases” by the EU’s legal service, which means that they probably would be required to be removed anyway because of insufficient evidence against them.
- Niels Troost is a Dutch businessman who was sanctioned by the EU in late 2024. His company, Paramount Energy and Commodities, had continued to trade Russian crude oil at prices above a G7-backed price cap. To date, he is the only EU citizen to be blacklisted for undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity. He has maintained, however, that he was deceived into a business deal that fell afoul of EU rules on Russian oil trading.
- Bolotova was sanctioned in 2022 and is the daughter of Nikolai Tokarev, the head of the Russian energy giant Transneft. The EU official journal states in its reasoning for sanctioning her that “Bolotova and her ex-husband Andrei Bolotov own luxury real estate in Moscow, Latvia, and Croatia worth more than $50 million, which can be linked to Nikolai Tokarev.”
- The journal further notes that “she also has links with the company Ronin, which manages the pension fund for Transneft. When [Bolotova] applied for Cypriot citizenship, she listed the address of Ronin Europe as her own in the press announcement.”
Briefing #2: Ukraine's EU-By-2027 Bid Hanging By A Thread
What You Need To Know: It is becoming clearer by the day that the EU won’t be able to accept Ukraine as an EU member by next year. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said as much to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy when visiting Kyiv in February when she said that the European Commission doesn't set dates. And earlier in March, ambassadors of several EU member states shot down the European Commission's idea of a so-called “reversed membership” at a dinner with key people in Von der Leyen’s cabinet. The “reversed” option would involve granting EU membership first, followed by a gradual expansion of market access, while, at the same time, requiring steady progress on democratization and the rule of law.
Deep Background: The EU's plan for Ukraine, it seems, is to continue with the status quo and mix it with a second option -- a sort of “gradual integration” that would give Kyiv access to certain EU benefits before getting full membership in the end. This is a plan that has been floating around Brussels corridors for more than a decade and was publicly endorsed by the leaders of Albania and Serbia, Edi Rama and Aleksandar Vucic, respectively, in a recent, jointly penned opinion piece for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The idea of Ukrainian membership by 2027 has troubled Brussels for months already. It is part of the US-led 20-point plan to settle the war between Russia and Ukraine, which was negotiated with minimal European input.
Everyone in Brussels would agree that EU membership is the ultimate security guarantee that can be offered to Kyiv. At the same time, the bloc is at pains to point out that accession is -- and always has been -- a long and arduous process in which a country's national laws need to become EU laws. Theoretically, a change in government in Hungary could end Budapest’s long-standing veto on launching Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations -- but, even then, closing the full set of chapters would likely take Kyiv many years. Ukraine just isn’t that advanced in its preparations and reforms for entry to the bloc. Hence, the need for the European Commission to potentially offer Ukraine the “reversed membership” option.
Drilling Down:
- But at a dinner with member states' ambassadors on March 4, this "reverse" idea was widely criticized. According to a read-out of the meeting seen by RFE/RL, the two big hitters, France and Germany, dismissed the idea and were backed by Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden.
- Instead, there was wider support for the two other options -- the status quo or gradual EU integration of the kind the Albanian and Serbian leaders are supporting.
- All of this reflects three positions that most EU member states cling to, even if they don't speak about it publicly: First, they want to keep veto rights on enlargement policy; second, they don't want the process to go too fast; and, third, they know how difficult it is to reform the enlargement process without resorting to an EU treaty change -- a Pandora's box that no one wants to open as the bloc would be struck in constitutional wrangles for years to come.
- On the veto issue, there is widespread annoyance with Budapest’s hard-line “no” for Ukraine and an understanding that there shouldn’t be over 100 veto opportunities as there currently is in the enlargement process. Despite those objections, most EU capitals want to retain the right to veto any candidate countries at some point along the way, if necessary.
- There are similar sentiments regarding the issue of fast-tracked membership. EU officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have told me that they still think that it's a "merit-based" process in which EU hopefuls undergo reforms to make sure they don't democratically backslide while a member of the union. "Avoiding another Hungary is much more important than speed for us," one EU diplomat said.
- Rama and Vucic highlighted the issue of the reforms the EU itself must undertake by noting that “worries about decision-making, institutional balance, and political cohesion are legitimate. Leading politicians in Paris, Berlin and elsewhere have emphasized that internal EU reforms may be necessary to keep an enlarged union capable of decisive action,” adding that “We are not naive. These arguments matter. We have -- often the hard way -- learned how difficult it is to persuade all member states to speed up our accession processes, and how easily progress can be blocked.”
- What they are instead asking for is an accelerated integration of prepared candidate countries into the EU’s single market -- but this would come with “no veto rights or additional commissioners, members of the European Parliament, or changes to voting structures.” Essentially, all the benefits EU membership would offer but without institutional representation of any kind.
- This sort of solution would be music to the ears of France and Germany, as well as for EU hopefuls in the western Balkans, who stand no chance of joining the bloc any time soon. The exemption is the current front-runner Montenegro, which still hopes to get full membership by 2028 and isn’t looking for any Plan Bs. It also doesn’t offer Ukraine anything but dashed hopes.
- But there are issues with this approach as well. For starters, there isn’t currently any legal possibility to offer “half memberships” in the EU. You are either in or out.
- What can be done is that the European Commission gets creative and comes up with a pre-accession treaty for those countries interested in the Albanian-Serbian option. For example, this could mean that before they are full EU members, they could become members of the visa-free Schengen zone. That could be tricky, however, as such an option would need to be signed off by all member states.
- In the end, the EU will likely offer lower-hanging fruit that doesn’t require any big legal changes. Some of the western Balkan states are already in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and they will soon be included in the EU’s “roam like home” mobile zone that Ukraine and Moldova became a part of at the start of 2026.
- With the Balkan nations all having Association Agreements with the EU, those deals can be deepened to include more integration in areas such as foreign policy and energy -- something that many EU ambassadors pointed out at their dinner last week.
- That may not suit Ukraine, but most EU member states and candidate countries are now edging closer to a “hybrid” of the current rules and additional gradual-integration “goodies” -- just as long as it isn’t fast-tracking anyone toward full membership anytime soon.
Looking Ahead
There is a distinct South Caucasus focus in this week’s European Parliament session in Strasbourg. On March 11, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian will address the chamber. Later that same day, there will be a debate about the situation in Georgia and the country's political prisoners, with the house expected to pass a nonbinding resolution on the topic a day later.
That's all for this week!
Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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