2023-08-28 18:05:40
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, during the Strategic Forum, in Bled, Slovenia, Monday August 28, 2023. DANIEL NOVAKOVIC / AP
The European Union (EU) must be ready to integrate new members “by 2030”urged Monday, August 28, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, during a conference in Bled, Slovenia.
“If we want to be credible, we have to talk about the calendar”he launched. “As we prepare the EU’s next strategic agenda, we must set ourselves a clear objective. I believe that we must be ready − on both sides − by 2030 for an enlargement”said the former Belgian Prime Minister at the Strategic Forum, which is being held from August 28 to 29 in Bled.
Five Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia), Ukraine and Moldova are candidates for membership. “It’s ambitious, but necessary. It shows that we are serious”, added Charles Michel. EU enlargement will be at the heart of the discussions of the leaders of the Twenty-Seven at their forthcoming summits. In particular, they will have to decide on the opening of accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova.
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The European Commission is due to present its recommendations on this issue in the autumn. Both countries were granted candidate status in June 2022, months after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. Five Western Balkan countries are also candidates and some of them have started negotiations with the EU for more than ten years.
Frozen negotiations with Turkey
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, present at the Forum, welcomed an announcement « extraordinaire »hoping she was going “translate into concrete steps” in the near future. If he judged the accession of Ukraine “natural” as part of a European project ” of peace “he has “I hope that this wish will not be made to the detriment of the Western Balkans”.
Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, for her part, regretted a very long wait in the antechamber of the EU, which, according to her, fueled euroscepticism in her country. “We are geographically, culturally and economically European”she insisted, calling on the Twenty-Seven to “to take the step and take a politically courageous decision to integrate the Western Balkans into the European family”.
Charles Michel acknowledged that “the slow progress towards the EU has disappointed many, both in the region and within the EU”. The next EU-Western Balkans summit will be “supported by the European Council” December 14 and 15, he announced. He suggested that the new approach to“gradual integration” allows candidate countries to participate in certain European policies such as defense and security once they are deemed ready, even if they have not fulfilled all the conditions to be integrated into the bloc.
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The Chairman of the Board also said ” fully agree “ with the French President, Emmanuel Macron, on the fact that the EU must reform itself before the next enlargement. “Integrating new members into our Union will not be easy. This will affect our policies, our programs and their budgets. This is going to require political reforms, and political courage.”, he admitted. Turkey is also a candidate country, but membership negotiations were frozen in 2018.
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