Enlargement fatigue and accession fatigue are two phenomena often used to describe the slowdown of the European Union (EU) enlargement. The purpose of this work was to search for the linkage between the two phenomena, whereby enlargement fatigue represents the lack will within the EU to accept new member states, and the accession fatigue represents the lack of will for further compliance to EU conditionality among six Western Balkan states (WB6). By applying the content analysis of European Council Conclusions and State of the EU speeches, I traced the presence of enlargement fatigue and factors that influenced its emergence. Accession fatigue was analysed by applying the same method to European Commission’s progress reports for WB6. Factors influencing both phenomena were analysed according to David J. Singer’s three levels of analysis: level of global society, the decision-makers level, and the level of domestic society. I establish that explicit enlargement fatigue was expressed by the European Commission and European Council only between 2014 and 2018, influenced mostly by factors from global society level: refugee crisis, Ukraine-Russia conflict, Brexit. Accession fatigue of WB6 did not overlap in time with enlargement fatigue. It emerged in 2010 and 2011, and it was mostly influenced by domestic political crises (decision-makers level of analysis). However, the case study of North Macedonia indicates different development of the accession process compared to other WB states. Enlargement fatigue exacerbated the existing domestic political crisis, which consequently influenced the emergence of accession fatigue in this state.
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