This Policy Note considers where the fast-tracked membership for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia stands six months on, and how its unfolding has impacted the existing enlargement package. Notably, the paper assesses how the Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue has sabotaged enlargement aims for the Balkan Peninsula as a whole, with the lingering problem increasingly appearing to be the EU’s denial to acknowledge Serbia’s uncooperativeness towards Kosovo’s recognition or wider European values and international standards. On operationalization of the matter of enlargement and political ties, the Policy Analysis then delves into how the EU’s civil-political nature has locked the Union in a need-to-act that, unlike NATO’s civil-military mandate, pushes the EU towards symbolic political moves with little-to-no prospect of concrete on-the-ground follow-up. For this reason, this Policy Analysis ends with some ‘’food-for thought’’ recommendations on how the EU could improve its decision-making processes to ensure it properly makes geopolitical (soft and hard power) profit off aligned partner countries.