A Bigger, Better, Bolder Europe

IMF News, September 8, 2026

Source details

Remarks delivered by Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director, at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, Belgium, September 8, 2026.
Launch of a new IMF paper focused on the Western Balkans and Moldova, with continued engagement with other accession-seeking countries, including Ukraine.
Context: contrasts past enlargement environment with current global conditions:
- The biggest enlargement wave to date came in 2004, followed by the enlargement of 2007.
- In 2004, world growth reached 5.3 percent.
- Global growth is projected to be about 3 percent this year.
- Current environment: trade restrictions and geopolitical tensions are high and rising; Europe faces significant demographic and fiscal pressures.

Focus: Western Balkans and Moldova as accession countries that share certain economic features.
Recognition of importance of engagement with other accession seekers, including Ukraine.
New capacity development initiative:
- Southeast Europe Technical Assistance Center (SEETAC) to be launched in Rome with support from Italy, the European Commission, Greece, and Luxembourg, and beneficiary countries.
- SEETAC will join an existing IMF center in Vienna that provides training to countries such as Ukraine.
- These centers complement the Ukraine Capacity Development Fund and the IMF’s Fund program for Ukraine.

Historical evidence:
- In past enlargement rounds, GDP per capita increased by more than 30 percent within a decade in regions that joined the EU compared with similar regions that did not.
- Existing member states also gained substantially from past enlargements.
IMF paper’s baseline assessment:
- Candidate countries could increase their GDP per capita by 30 to 35 percent within a decade.
Sources of income gains:
- Productivity accounts for roughly two-thirds of the overall income gains from accession.
- Each of three engines of convergence accounts for about 1/3 of the potential income gains in the baseline assessment.

Domestic reform anchored in the EU acquis.
Single-market access.
Effective use of EU funding.
Notes:
- Differences in effective reform implementation and use of funds explain why some countries converge faster than others.
- Strong governance is critically important—reducing uncertainty, encouraging investment, improving effectiveness of public spending, and helping firms seize opportunities from integration.

IMF support includes policy advice and capacity development for accession countries.
New and existing IMF centers (SEETAC in Rome; center in Vienna) provide training and technical assistance.
These centers work alongside the Ukraine Capacity Development Fund and IMF Fund programs.

Shared responsibility to maximize accession gains:
- Candidate countries:
- Implement the acquis effectively.
- Avoid gaps, unnecessary customization, or gold-plating that dilute integration benefits.
- European Union:
- Deepen and make the single market more seamless.
- Recognize that enlargement and single-market deepening are complements; a larger Europe is stronger if it is more integrated.
Emphasis on “done well”:
- Enlargement must be accompanied by bold domestic reforms and judicious EU support for productivity gains to materialize.
- Productivity growth is the pathway to prosperity: it creates better jobs, higher wages, reduces emigration pressures, and catalyzes higher investment and stronger labor market outcomes.

Past enlargement delivered big gains for both new and existing members; future enlargement can do much the same.
Personal testimony: growing up in Bulgaria, the speaker witnessed the tangible benefits of European integration.
Call to action: press on with confidence—Europe needs to believe in itself.

Source: Remarks by Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director, September 8, 2026.