Diplomacy: WadePhul wants to boost EU process for Western Balkans

Foreign Minister Johann WadePhul wants to boost the EU expansion process with the Western Balkans – and sees Croatia in a key role. “It now needs new impetus for the expansion – for Ukraine, for Moldau and for the states of the western Balkans,” said the CDU politician at a meeting with his colleague Gordan Grlic Radman in the Croatian capital Zagreb. “Here I want an active, a shaping role for Croatia as a companion,” he added.

Montenegro is seen among the western Balkans as the most widest in the EU accession process, but a date for a recording is not in prospect. With Montenegro and Serbia, the EU has been conducting accession negotiations since 2012 and in 2014. The 2022 negotiation process was launched with Albania and Northern Macedonia. Bosnia-Herzegovina has the status of a candidate for accession, but has not yet been negotiated. Kosovo is a potential candidate.

WadePhul: EU accession procedures is also geopolitics

An EU accession is not a purely technical process, but also geopolitics, said WadePhul. “We must not leave our neighborhood to Autocrats that have an impact on disinformation and corruption or want to tempt us to new dependencies,” he warned, without naming countries like Russia and China. In parallel to the process of expansion, the EU must be reformed internally so that it could meet the geopolitical challenges as a capable of action and democratically solid.

Croatia is indispensable in the expansion process, said WadePhul. “You know the efforts of the accession process from your own experience. That makes you bridge farmers for the Western Balkans.” The country is “a key to the fact that Europe can continue to grow, not only to members, but in strength, cohesion and radiance”. Croatia joined the European Union in mid -2013 as the last country to date and is also in NATO.

Radman warns of geostrategic vacuum

Radman said his country actively participated in the EU’s negotiating process with the Western Balkans. “We don’t want to see the influence of third parties on these countries,” he emphasized. The Western Balkans should not remain “in a geostrategic vacuum”. Radman added: “The Western Balkans is Europe, the Western Balkans belongs to geopolitical and geostrategic.”