Hannes Swoboda and Maria Eleni Koppa expressed their support for the European accession of the Western Balkan, saying that this important and courageous step should be taken by the EU first.
Considering the strategy for Western Balkan as very important, the European MPs say that since the Thessaloniki summit of 2003, the most important thing that has been done for this region has been the visa free regime.
“However, the EU should make more courageous movements in this path. We strongly believe that it is time to do more. We need new ideas that could fulfil and reinforce the strategy, offering a new impulse for the region’s integration in the EU structures. Our strongest enemy in the region is people’s disappointment due to the complicated and long processes”, they say.
Swoboda and Koppa have a three-steps proposition as a structure for getting the Western Balkan countries closer to the EU.
The first one is the creation of a security committee between EU and Western Balkan, for efficient institutional cooperation.
The second step is the participation in structural funds that are currently for EU countries only. “The Berlin process should turn into an EU process to integrate the region in the pre-admission strategy, with a special role of the European Commission.
The third proposition is giving “observatory” status to the Council of Europe meetings.
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