TIRANA, Oct. 7 – A summit of European Union and Western Balkan leaders has affirmed the EU’s commitment to enlargement in the region, but it has provided no firm membership dates,
The renewed commitment of a promise made nearly two decades ago was welcomed news for EU enlargement supporters after a report by the Reuters news agency indicated that even that basic promise could possibly be taken off the table due to a rift inside the EU.
To appease concerned members, the summit has introduced a caveat that the EU needs to first be sure it is internally ready to properly absorb the six Western Balkan states before offering membership. “We also recall the importance that the EU can maintain and deepen its own development, ensuring its capacity to integrate new members,” the summit’s final declaration notes.
The summit, held in Brdo, Slovenia, was meant to reassure the six Western Balkan states following uncertainty and obstacles that have piled up on the enlargement process.
The final declaration aims to do that. It noted: “The EU reaffirms its unequivocal support for the European perspective of the Western Balkans and welcomes the commitment of the Western Balkans partners to the European perspective, which is in our mutual strategic interest and remains our shared strategic choice. The EU reconfirms its commitment to the enlargement process and its decisions taken thereon, based upon credible reforms by partners, fair and rigorous conditionality and the principle of own merits.”
Top EU leaders stressed the fact that the Western Balkans are seen as part of the future of the European Union.
“The Western Balkans is part of the same Europe as the European Union. We share the same history, we share the same interests, the same values, and, I am deeply convinced, also the same destiny. The European Union is not complete without the Western Balkans. So my Commission will continue to do its utmost to advance the enlargement process and the region’s EU integration. We want the Western Balkans in the European Union. There cannot be any doubt that our goal is enlargement,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who recently finished a tour of the region.
Slovenian Prime Minister Janes Jansa, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, expressed disappointment that EU member states had not accepted his proposal to set concrete membership deadlines, guaranteeing membership by 2030.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has grown increasingly frustrated with his comments on Albania’s stalled EU membership bid, noted it had been 18 years since the countries were first promised membership in Thessaloniki and currently enlargements seems to be a “a timid echo of the past.”
Rama also expressed his unhappiness about the role played by the EU during the height of the pandemic, accusing the EU of leaving the region like a “fish without water” for making no efforts to include Western Balkan states in emergency vaccination plans.
The region’s efforts to join the EU have been met with ever more delays and obstacles, such as the recent case of Bulgaria’s veto on North Macedonia, which is also holding hostage the organizing the first intergovernmental conference with Albania.
“The lack of a decision to open negotiations with Northern Macedonia and Albania is endangering our position and our influence in the region,” EC President von der Leyen said.
Another attempt was made at the summit to resolve the stalemate between Sofia and Skopje, and there are indications a deal could soon be reached.
