The Foreign Ministers of the Balkan Countries and from the Visegrad Group: 2025 Is a Feasible Period for EU Enlargement
11 May 2018 News
“2025 is a feasible date for enlargement of the European Union into the Western Balkans. Let us support the candidate countries and be honest with them. Their citizens need to be able to believe that once they have met the criteria, the doors for them will be open.” With these words Ekaterina Zaharieva, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria addressed her fellow ministers from the region and the Visegrad Group on the eve of the EU-Western Balkans Summit, which will take place in Sofia next week.
Ekaterina Zaharieva took part in the second Visegrad-4 Plus and Balkans-4 Plus meeting of the foreign ministers held in the area of Sounion, Athens. The countries from the Visegrad Group and the four Balkan EU Member States (Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania) took part in the forum. The six non-EU Member Western Balkan countries as well as Slovenia and Cyprus were invited at the forum as observers.
All of the attending diplomats thanked the Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council for putting the European perspective of the Western Balkans high on the agenda. The ministers welcomed the Sofia meeting and gave their full support to the practical integration measures for the region, which are to go along with the political support.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia Nikola Dimitrov said that the support for the countries from the region expressed during the Bulgarian Presidency will be essential to the future of the Balkans and that this year would be decisive for their fate for at least a decade to come.
The foreign ministers concurred that Europe should not develop as a “two-speed Europe”. “Bulgaria opposes the double standards such as the one applied as regards food products – our citizens are not second-rate people. Another example of a double standard is Schenghen – Bulgaria has fulfilled the technical criteria set in 2011, but has not been admitted into the area for political reasons,” Ekaterina Zaharieva said. She called for the candidate countries to be included into the debate on the future of the Union.
“We should continuously enhance the work of our institutions,” the Bulgarian Foreign Minister said, “We should remind ourselves of the grounds for the establishment of the EU and the reasons for the candidate countries’ willingness to join – not only because of the economic prosperity and the better life for its citizens, but because of the values and human rights.”
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