A geopolitical turning point? Enlargement discourse after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has been cast as a geopolitical turning point for European Union enlargement. Whilst solidarity with Ukraine has translated into the swift granting of candidate status only a few months later, we know less about how the European Union's position towards other candidates has evolved. Drawing on the concept of ‘rhetorical action’, we explore the evolution of enlargement discourse in the wake of Russia's aggression: does the European Union's renewed commitment to enlargement concern Ukraine alone, or rather expand beyond Kyiv to signal a broader revival of the accession process? And how do Members of the European Parliament’s evolving positions on the pursuit of European Union widening align with prevalent ideological and geographic cleavages in the European Parliament? Analysing an original dataset of over 1700 hand-coded enlargement statements from the European Parliament's ninth term (2019–2024), we show that Russia's full-scale invasion coincides with a generalised reinvigoration of the European Parliament's enlargement discourse that is driven in particular by a shift in mainstream parties’ positions and by Members of the European Parliament from Central and Eastern Europe. However, the effects of this ‘rhetorical entrapment’ remain limited to Members of the European Parliament from mainstream party groups, with radical right actors instead avoiding to engage in enlargement-related debates.