(1/2)European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and North Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski attend a welcome ceremony, during the European Commission President’s visit, to Skopje, North Macedonia, on October 30, 2023. REUTERS/Ognen Teofilovski Acquire license rights
SARAJEVO, Oct 30 (Reuters) – The European Union plans to help Western Balkan countries pursue reforms needed for their integration with the rich bloc with an investment of 6 billion euros ($6.4 billion) , declared the president of the European executive, Ursula von der Leyen. , said Monday in Skopje.
North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina must all seize the ‘window of opportunity’ of EU enlargement and work to align their standards with those of the bloc, said von der Leyen.
Von der Leyen said the EU’s new growth plan for the region would include opening its common market to Western Balkan countries in areas such as the free movement of goods and services, transport and energy. He also urged countries to open a common regional market and pursue it with necessary reforms.
North Macedonia, for example, needs to reform its business environment, create an efficient public administration, have healthy public finances and improve the fight against corruption. He must also amend the constitution to recognize Bulgarians as a minority, as requested by Bulgaria, in order to allow the country to join the EU.
“These reforms will be accompanied by investments,” von der Leyen said at a news conference with North Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski at the start of his tour of the Western Balkans.
Von der Leyen said the EU was ready to start disbursing 100 million euros in micro-financial aid, but that “we need to do more, we need to bring our economies closer together”, since the economies of Western Balkan countries account for around 42% of the economy. the average income in the EU.
“What we want to do together is double your economy over the next decade,” she said.
Later that day, she traveled to Kosovo, where she urged the country to grant more autonomy to the Serb minority, which makes up about 5 percent of the population, by creating an association of municipalities that would serve them .
She said that the normalization of relations with Serbia and above all the creation of the association “are crucial and will of course also open the door to access to the growth plan (of the EU package)”.
After receiving the promise of EU membership years ago, the accession process in the region has slowed down, mainly due to reluctance among the bloc’s 27 members and a lack of reforms across the region.
Serbia and Montenegro were the first in the region to launch EU accession talks, and Albania and North Macedonia subsequently began negotiations with Brussels last year. Bosnia and Kosovo, however, remain far behind their neighbors in this process.
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Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci in Pristina; Editing by Alison Williams, Ed Osmond and Mark Porter
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