The European Union has confirmed the European prospects of the Western Balkans, but has requested reforms. This is the conclusion of the EU-Western Balkans summit held in Sofia
This week's summit in Sofia has confirmed the European prospects of the Western Balkans region and has established a series of clear actions to consolidate cooperation in the field of connectivity, security and the rule of law.
The summit was the first in this format in the last 15 years and brought together EU heads of state and government and their counterparts from Albania, Bosnia Hertegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo.
"The summit may be a symbolic act, but it can again trigger a little more dynamism," said the Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose country will take over the rotating EU presidency from Bulgaria in July. "If there is no European perspective in the Balkans, then the Turkish influence and other influence becomes stronger and stronger," Kurz also said.
"I am in favour of anchoring the Balkans in Europe and moving toward Europe. But I think we need to look at any new enlargement with a lot of prudence and rigor," said the French president Emmanuel Macron, one of the European leaders whose statements have poured cold water on the hopes of the Balkan countries about a possible fast entry into the European Union.
"We must help the countries that are reforming and moving towards Europe", Macron also said, adding that before considering any possible enlargement, the European Union must first achieve real reform itself allowing for deeper integration and better functioning of the 27 member states after Britain's exit in 2019.
So far, accession talks have begun with Montenegro, in 2012, and with Serbia, in 2014. Before moving forward, the Balkan countries must make sure there is greater stability among them - was another message that came from Sofia. Brussels' worries are linked, among others, to the tensions between Serbia and its former province Kosovo, whose unilateral declaration of independence a decade ago is yet to be recognised by five member states, including Romania.
This is but one example of the tensions existing in a region that has not fully stabilised two decades after the dismantling of the former Yugoslavia. President Klaus Iohannis, Romania's representative at the summit in Sofia said the final declaration reflected the Union's commitment to the Western Balkans and its adherence to the "own merits" principle, in the sense that each partner is assessed individually depending on its own results.
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