As Brussels pushes forward with a brand new wave of enlargement, the numbers behind Europe’s commerce with its candidate international locations reveal a narrative of dependence, asymmetry, but in addition a big, untapped potential.
The official EU candidates are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. Kosovo is handled as a possible candidate.
Collectively, they cowl a various sweep of geography from lengthy Adriatic coastlines to lush forests and a few of Europe’s best farmland — additionally together with a few of Europe’s youngest populations.
However whereas commerce flows between the bloc and future members are booming, the connection stays unequal, with extra EU-produced items discovering a market than these stemming from potential member states.
In line with the European Fee’s 2025 Western Balkans commerce factsheet, whole commerce in items between the EU and the six Western Balkan companions reached €83.6 billion in 2024, up 28.6% since 2021.
Exports from the EU to the area stood at €49.06bn, whereas imports from the Western Balkans got here to €34.52bn, leaving Brussels with a €14.54bn commerce surplus.
The EU’s dominance as a market is overwhelming. It accounts for round 62% of all Western Balkan commerce, whereas the area represents barely 1.7% of the EU’s exterior commerce.
Import and export values between the Western Balkan international locations and the EU over time – Supply: Eurostat
For Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania, between two-thirds and three-quarters of all exports go to EU international locations.
“All (candidate) international locations, with the curious exception of North Macedonia, have persistent commerce deficits with the EU, which means they import extra from the EU than they export there,” defined Branimir Jovanović, an skilled with The Vienna Institute for Worldwide Financial Research (WIIW).
“These are economies with small productive sectors. They don’t produce sufficient of what they want, so that they need to import, they usually additionally don’t produce sufficient to export,” Jovanović continued.
Over the previous decade, North Macedonia has change into a manufacturing base for elements that go straight into EU business that qualify for preferential entry to the EU market beneath the Stabilisation and Affiliation framework (SAA).
The result’s that North Macedonia can promote a comparatively excessive share of what it makes instantly into the EU with out being blocked by technical requirements.
That is very completely different from, say, Albania, which leans extra on uncooked supplies and low-value textiles, or Montenegro, which is tourism-heavy and import-dependent in items.
It is usually completely different from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, which nonetheless import loads of higher-value equipment from the EU after which export a extra combined, lower-value basket again.
Ukraine and Moldova import high-value EU equipment, autos and industrial gear, whereas exporting primarily lower-margin items. In essence, they provide uncooked supplies and primary merchandise, and the EU provides the expertise to supply them.
The Western Balkans commerce with the EU beneath SAAs, which regularly take away tariffs and align nationwide legal guidelines with EU guidelines as a part of the formal accession course of. In contrast, Ukraine and Moldova function beneath Deep and Complete Free Commerce Areas (DCFTAs), broader offers that open giant components of the EU single market in trade for adopting a lot of the EU’s regulatory framework.
In essence, SAAs are a pathway to membership, whereas DCFTAs supply deep EU market integration with out full membership. This distinction has, nonetheless, change into blurred — with Brussels indicating that it believes in full membership for Ukraine and Moldova after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Nations exporting to the EU face many obstacles except for tariffs. Economists name these technical obstacles to commerce, similar to phytosanitary requirements,” Jovanović defined.
So even when they produce one thing that there’s a demand for within the EU, it by no means reaches these markets as a result of these corporations may not have the mandatory certificates.
“So, though unemployment has decreased, there isn’t any actual progress in growth. There’s additionally an actual threat of a middle-income lure, within the sense that these economies stay assembly-line economies, with low wages and restricted technological growth and innovation.”
The identical debate now extends to Ukraine, which formally opened EU accession talks in 2024. Regardless of the battle, commerce between the EU and Ukraine has surged. Eurostat information exhibits the bloc exported €42.8bn price of products to Ukraine in 2024 and imported €24.5bn, yielding a €18.3bn surplus for the EU.
The composition of that commerce has shifted dramatically because the Russian invasion. Agricultural commodities nonetheless dominate Ukrainian exports such however the EU has change into its conduit for reconstruction supplies and equipment.
Neighbouring Moldova, one other candidate nation since 2023, exhibits related patterns. The EU is Moldova’s greatest buying and selling companion, accounting for 54% of its whole commerce in items in 2024. Some 65.6% of Moldovan exports head to the EU.
Commerce turnover reached about €7.5bn final yr, with EU exports to Moldova amounting to €5.1bn and imports to €2.4bn.
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The Western Balkans have made stable progress because the early 2000s, however full convergence with the European Union stays a distant purpose, warned the OECD’s Financial Convergence Scoreboard for 2025.
The six economies have greater than doubled their output in twenty years — but the area nonetheless solely reaches about 40% of the EU common. At present development charges, full convergence will not arrive till 2074.
The area’s output per individual (in purchasing-power parity phrases) has greater than doubled in 20 years, exhibiting actual enchancment in productiveness, funding, and residing requirements.
Which means the Western Balkans are closing the hole, however painfully slowly, and the sturdy development charges are offset by the a lot larger productiveness and capital inventory contained in the EU.
Development, by itself, will not be sufficient for convergence. The Western Balkans want qualitatively completely different development which is pushed by innovation, abilities, and higher-value industries.
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Infrastructure and productiveness are the area’s weakest hyperlinks.
In line with the OECD report: “The inadequate high quality and protection of core public transport infrastructure generally is a vital impediment to larger financial development…as insufficient transport networks can severely constrain the connectivity of producers and shoppers to international and regional markets.”
With regard to Ukraine, its economic system has tailored after a historic shock, however the harm is staggering. A lot of the inhabitants has been displaced and huge swathes of infrastructure have been destroyed.
Output fell –28.8% in 2022 and rebounded +5.5% in 2023. Public funds are being stretched to the restrict by defence wants, hindering convergence with EU member states.
International direct funding (FDI) brings factories and jobs to candidate international locations, in addition to constructing stronger hyperlinks with present EU member states. Even so, Jovanović argued that this has not led to “structural transformation” within the candidate nations.
The sample is seen, for instance, in Serbia — the place automotive vegetation are boosting employment however the nation remains to be importing high-tech equipment.
When FDI concentrates in lower-value levels of manufacturing and native provider bases stay skinny, wage features are restricted and extra worth is captured overseas.
“There’s a duality in how FDI is perceived: politicians nonetheless see it as the important thing — typically even the one manner — to develop the economic system, whereas individuals are more and more seeing it as a vicious circle,” stated Jovanović.
“Therefore, a change within the financial mannequin is lengthy overdue — with a extra selective method in the direction of FDI, specializing in high-quality and high-tech funding and a better deal with home corporations by means of industrial and innovation insurance policies,” Jovanović added.
The argument is evident: whereas FDI raises employment and hyperlinks these economies to EU markets, it turns into transformative solely when it upgrades the native manufacturing base.
In any other case, candidate international locations threat remaining an meeting platform slightly than a full companion in Europe’s worth chains.
Ultimately, the numbers inform each successful story and a warning. They present integration with out transformation: Exports are up, factories are open, however productiveness and infrastructure nonetheless lag.
The following section might want to hinge on high quality, not simply amount, say consultants. This implies selective FDI that upgrades provide chains, focused single-market entry tied to reforms, and sooner funding in abilities, vitality, and transport.
If Brussels and the candidates can shift from meeting to innovation, the hole can slender inside a era. If not, the candidate international locations threat remaining a reliable workshop slightly than a affluent companion.
