Brussels has pledged to extend some of the benefits of the EU’s single market to the western Balkans and boost funding as the region confronts a fresh bout of instability.
Countries in the western Balkans that are still waiting to join the EU could be integrated in the bloc’s digital single market in areas such as ecommerce or cyber security and benefit from facilitated trade in goods and payments, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said. Pre-accession funding should also be boosted to help address a “dire need” for investment, she added, without giving figures.
“Our shared goal is to speed up their journey towards the European Union,” von der Leyen told a conference in Bratislava on Wednesday. “It is not enough to say that the door is open. We must also take responsibility to bring the aspiring members of our Union much closer to us.”
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has concentrated minds in the EU on the risks of neglecting countries that could fall under Russian influence, with some capitals pushing for renewed momentum in the Balkans. However enlargement has stalled since the union admitted Croatia a decade ago: Kosovo is farthest away as it still awaits to be granted candidate status; Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and North Macedonia have yet to start membership talks; and Serbia and Montenegro have started negotiations but they are also far from joining the bloc.
On Tuesday the US outlined punitive actions against Kosovo for stoking ethnic tensions that led to Nato peacekeepers and Serb protesters being injured in the worst clashes taking place in the Balkan country this year.
Kosovo’s independence is still not recognised by Serbia and a handful of EU countries, impeding its prospects of becoming an official candidate for EU membership.
The Brussels offer to its western Balkan partners was immediately welcomed by leaders from the region.
“The EU should open a new path of co-operation in terms of funding because otherwise there is no future in terms of security and stability for the Balkans and if the Balkans cough, for the European Union it’s pneumonia,” Albanian prime minister Edi Rama told the Globsec conference in Bratislava.
He stressed that receiving more EU money did not mean the six countries of the western Balkans would join the EU faster. “We are not running to become members of the European Union, I am part of this school of thought that thinks that if it doesn’t work with 27, how will it work with 33,” Rama said. “But we have to enter into a new relation, so let’s do so.”
Dimitar Kovačevski, prime minister of North Macedonia, described von der Leyen as “a great friend of our countries,” but he also insisted that Brussels should have contributed earlier to reducing the wealth gap between his region and the EU, particularly after seeing the benefits of including mostly former Communist states in 2004.
“Why have the countries in south-eastern Europe and eastern Europe improved economically? For one reason only, because they became members of the European Union,” he said.
