The western Balkan applicants have thus had to contend with a process that is now managed on a more intergovernmental basis than was the big bang of 2004, and which has, at times, been held hostage to member states’ selfish bilateral demands. Enlargement was traditionally viewed as an area where national interests would be more readily set aside than in conventional EU settings: the normative dimension of the process seemed to demand a more community-oriented approach to decision-making.
于是，西巴尔干申请入盟的国家不得不与新的程序纠缠。与2004年的大爆炸相比，如今的入盟程序更多地建立在政府间的基础上，常常沦为成员国自私的双边要挟物。传统上，扩张被视为比常规欧盟条约更能超越国家利益的领域：入盟程序的常规内容要求决策方式更加社会导向。但这已经发生了根本性改变。