The European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement expressed his assessment that “eventually there will be enlargement in the Western Balkans”, Oliver Varchelliduring the discussion he had with the director of the ACG Institute of Global Affairs and professor of International Relations at the American College of Greece, Konstantinos Fili, during the first day of the 9th Delphi Economic Forum.
Mr. Varheli stressed that “we have to overcome skepticism regarding European enlargement and speaking about this issue, we can only start with the Western Balkans”. He estimated that many years have already been lost and admitted that “it is a question that haunts us – whether there will be enlargement in the Western Balkans”. However, as he pointed out, “as I head towards the end of my term, the answer to the question is that there will eventually be enlargement to the Western Balkans”.
As he explained, Europe is the place of stability and growth for the whole world and added that now “enlargement is among the three main issues that leaders are discussing”. He then referred to the four fundamental European values - prosperity, stability, security, peace – and stressed that Europe remains at the center of these values, despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Regarding enlargement, he emphasized that we should put the tools in place so that this enlargement can take place, but also that there are still many discussions to be had.
He also explained that when we will redesign the enlargement, we will have to start the discussion from the beginning (the funds, the candidate countries, etc.) and mentioned that the most important thing in the enlargement is the integration of the countries and not the procedures. Member countries must meet the conditions, especially the fundamental values and the state of law, he stressed and added that in terms of security, many Western Balkan countries are already members of NATO.
“A lot of investment is needed”
He then referred to the huge gap between the EU and the candidate countries, especially in areas such as development and investment, and underlined that a lot of investment is needed. He emphasized that 1/3 of the region’s GDP should be diverted to investments to build the Western Balkans, to the lack of energy and transport, adding that “we have broken the Russian energy monopoly”.
Recording the progress that has been made, he said that “65% of the plans have been implemented, the funds are being absorbed at a very fast pace, while this year we are working on SEPA, the banking payment system, which is progressing rapidly and now anyone who wants to transfer funds between Balkan countries, it can do it as in Europe, with the same speed and the same cost.”
Finally, he underlined that “we can speed up the work on the most difficult parts of integration”, so that the countries of the Western Balkans become equal members of the EU.
Source: RES-MPE
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