Enhancing the success of enlargement through the political ownership - teritorial capital nexus

OWN-EU reframes enlargement strategies and policies for the Eastern Neighbourhood and Western Balkans (ENWB) by coupling lessons from past rounds with a novel analytical lens: the nexus between political ownership (behavioural, administrative and societal commitment to change) and territorial capital (human, institutional, infrastructural, social, environmental and geo-strategic assets). This framework recognizes the heterogeneity of ENWB candidates countries - different state capacities, territorial disparities, conflict legacies and connectivity gaps - and explains why identical conditionality yields divergent outcomes. Building a comparative evidence from previous enlargements, OWN-EU aims, thus, to examine and understand the role of such contrasts between and within candidate states in order to provide dynamic recommendations for how the EU should redesign its enlargement strategy and increase its effectiveness, while delivering differentiated approaches that take into account the characteristics of each candidate state. Evidence is co-produced with citizens and authorities by applying experiments (e.g. living Labs in candidate countries), pilots in EU members, surveys, focus groups, interviews, questionnaires. Transparent participation - foresight workshops, scenario debates, digital feedback loops - will facilitate the involvement of citizens and policy makers to actively engage in the evaluation and design of policies and to express their interest in enlargement and, respectively, accession to the EU. By coupling rigorous analytics with practical tools and inclusive engagement, OWN-EU equips EU and national actors to finely calibrate conditionality, target investments, anticipate risks and communicate clearly. The outcome is a differentiated, legitimate and citizen-backed enlargement strategy that accelerates democratic resilience and sustainable Europeanisation across a diverse ENWB.