Three-tier integration as an option for further EU enlargement: the case of the Union for the Mediterranean

The article examines the opportunities for future EU enlargement through new formats based on the concept developed in the first half of the 1990s, which, however, acquires fresh spotlight under circumstances of crisis-plagued world and upheaval of Euro-skepticism. The study is focused on institutional evolution of the Barcelona Initiative leading to the gradual construction of the nowadays Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), a noticeable segment of the EU Neighborhood Policy. Modeled coeval to the Eastern Partnership (EaP), the UfM, providing room for acute cultural differences between members and thus being very different from the EaP, leaving out the Maastricht criterion, has accomplished some of the basic institutional tasks of integration in trade and civic society aspects. It seems that even within such an emulative framework the organization has evidenced similar effects to ordinary accession-driven processes.