As the European Union takes a bold, proactive approach to adding new members, it is trying to reform itself to handle the enlargement.
Leaders of the six Western Balkan countries—Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia—met on Monday in Skopje, North Macedonia, to discuss reforms needed to access the new EU’s growth plan for the Western Balkans.
The plan’s objective is to help candidate countries step up the reforms required to join the EU, the European Commission said in the statement.
The allocated fund consists of 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in grants and 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in concessional loans, but payments will happen only after the Western Balkans’ countries fulfill the “specific socio-economic and fundamental reforms” they agreed upon, the commission said.
“The growth plan is a potential game changer and could double the size of your economies in the next decade,” said Gert Jan Koopman, the European Commission’s Director-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations.
The plan sets a precondition for Serbia and Kosovo to resolve their outstanding issues through talks facilitated by the EU’s top diplomat.
EU Single Market
The growth plan also aims to integrate the Western Balkans with the European Union’s single market, which requires them to open the relevant sectors and areas to all their neighbors at the same time, the commission said.Therefore, the aspiring countries should first create a Western Balkans “common regional market,” which, according to the commission, is “a stepping-stone to the opportunities of the single market. “The regional market is also “vital to overcome small fragmented markets, make businesses competitive, attract investors, and retain workers,” the commission asserted.
For example, in the Western Balkan region, “trucks spend 28 million hours waiting at borders every year – a burden that costs 1 percent of the region’s GDP,” the commission illustrated its point. “Building a common market of 18 million people, functioning on the basis of EU rules, could be a game changer for the Western Balkans and would benefit both the region and the EU”.
Bosnia
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Croatia told Bosnia on Tuesday to press on with reforms and seize a chance to begin accession negotiations with the European Union before the 27-nation block holds a parliamentary vote in June.
The three officials visited Bosnia-Herzegovina and said at a news conference in Sarajevo that while the Balkan country has made progress in achieving the criteria to start the talks formally, it must do more to win a positive recommendation from the European Commission in March.
Bosnian Prime Minister Bojana Kristo promised: “We will remain focused and work hard” to achieve the goals.
Bosnia is among the six Western Balkan nations seeking EU entry following a period of wars and crises in the 1990s. The process was stalled for years, but in 2022, Bosnia was granted candidate status, and the European Council said last year that the accession negotiations could start once the necessary degree of compliance is achieved.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte mentioned the dark page in the shared history of Bosnia and the Netherlands, referring to the genocide in Srebrenica in 1995 that claimed more than 8,000 lives.
Dutch-national U.N. peacekeepers, at that time, “turned the men under their protection over to Bosnian Serbs,” which contributed to the genocide, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Hague Court of Appeal ruled in 2017 that the Netherlands was partly responsible for the deaths of approximately 350 Muslims in Srebrenica.”
“We support Bosnia’s European ambitions because ultimately our common interest is for [Bosnia and Herzegovina] to take its place at the table of the European family as a united and sovereign state,” Mr. Rutte said, according to N1 TV Channel based in the Balkans.
Bosnia still needs to do a lot of work to reach the opening of the negotiations phase, which is the next phase of the accession process, Mr. Rutte said, as reported by N1.
“As far as the Netherlands is concerned, there are no shortcuts, reforms must be made. It’s a lot of work over the next six weeks. … Time is running out; by the end of March, this opportunity will be extinguished,” Mr. Rutte warned, according to N1.
Calls to Reform EU
The parliamentarians recommended moving away from unanimity in the EU’s decision-making process and using more flexible mechanisms, such as qualified majority voting, for certain legislative proposals, the statement said.
The calculation of qualified majority voting thresholds should be revised to improve “the balance between larger and smaller states and to set higher thresholds for the most important decisions,” the statement said.
A Member of the European Parliament, Pedro Silva Pereira, Portugal, representing the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, said in the statement that the EU will not be able to absorb new members without institutional and financial reforms. “An enlarged EU, with 35 or more member states, cannot function with the current rules designed for 27.”
The relaxation of the unanimity voting requirement should take place ahead of possible revisions of the EU treaties, the statement said.
In November, the European Parliament adopted a proposal to amend the EU treaties. One of the proposed amendments recommends limiting the number of members of the EU executive body to 15.
