The European Union must be ready to integrate new members “by 2030”, demanded the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, on Monday at a conference in Bled, Slovenia.
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“If we want to be credible, we have to talk about the calendar,” he said.
“In preparing the EU’s next strategic agenda, we need to set a clear goal. I believe that by 2030 we need to be ready for enlargement on both sides,” he told the Bled Strategy Forum.
Five Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia), Ukraine and Moldova are candidate countries.
“It is ambitious but necessary. It shows that we mean business,” he added during the meeting attended by Western Balkans leaders.
EU enlargement will be the focus of discussions by the Heads of State and Government of the Twenty-Seven at their forthcoming summits. In particular, they must decide whether to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova.
The European Commission is expected to present its recommendations on this topic in the autumn. Both countries were granted candidate status in June 2022, months after Russia began invading Ukraine.
Five Western Balkan countries are also candidates and some of them have been in negotiations with the EU for more than ten years.
Charles Michel acknowledged that “the slow pace of this journey towards the EU has disappointed many, both in the region and within the EU”.
The next EU-Western Balkans summit on December 14th and 15th will be “supported by the European Council”, he announced.
He suggested that the new approach of “gradual integration” adopted by the Twenty-Seven should allow candidate countries to engage in certain European policies, such as defense and security, as soon as they are deemed ready, even if they do not have all the necessary conditions have met included in the block.
Charles Michel also said that he “completely agrees” with French President Emmanuel Macron that the EU needs to be reformed 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 requires political reforms and political courage,” he acknowledged.
Turkey is also a candidate country, but accession negotiations were frozen in 2018.