North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia
and Herzegovina all need to seize the "window of opportunity"
for the enlargement of the EU and work to align their standards
to those in the bloc, von der Leyen said.
Von der Leyen said the EU's new growth plan for the region would
include the opening of its common market to the Western Balkan
countries in areas such as free movement of goods and services,
transport and energy. It also urged the countries to open a
common regional market and pursue with necessary reforms.
North Macedonia, for example, needs to reform its business
environment, create an efficient public administration, have
sound public finances and improve the fight against corruption.
It also needs to amend the constitution to recognize Bulgarians
as a minority, as requested by Bulgaria to allow the country to
join the EU.
"These reforms will come with investment," von der Leyen said
during a news conference with North Macedonia's Prime Minister
Dimitar Kovacevski at the start of her Western Balkans tour.
"We have proposed a 6 billion euro ($6.34 billion) package for
Western Balkan partners," she said.
Von der Leyen said the EU was ready to start disbursing 100
million euros in microfinancial assistance but "we need to do
more, we need to bring our economies closer", since the
economies of the Western Balkan countries' account for about 42%
of the EU average income.
"What we aim to do together is to double your economy within the
next decade," she said.
Having been promised EU membership years ago, the accession
process across the region has slowed to a crawl, mainly due to
reluctance among the bloc's 27 members and a lack of reform
throughout the region.
Serbia and Montenegro were the first in the region to launch EU
membership talks, and Albania and North Macedonia then began
talks with Brussels last year. Bosnia and Kosovo still lag far
behind their neighbours in the process, however.
($1 = 0.9458 euros)
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Alison Williams and
Ed Osmond)
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