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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to the Balkans continues on Saturday with a visit to northern Macedonia and Bulgaria. This visit matters, but the potential for disappointment is also great, says expert Gerald Knaus.
The German Chancellor continues his trip to the Balkans on Saturday and stays in Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria. At the center of talks Saturday is a dispute between Skopje and Sofia that is hampering the opening of negotiations on northern Macedonia and Albania. Bulgaria has been preventing this for years by making historic claims. On the first day of the trip, Scholz appealed to Pristina and Belgrade to speed up reforms that initiate the membership process. The German chancellor urged Serbia to join EU sanctions.
The visit of the German Chancellor is also echoed in the German media. The newspaper “Straubiger Tagblatt / Landshuter Zeitung” writes that Olaf Scholz is right, when he will keep alive the European perspective in the EU. “But this does not need to be a full membership. The European Union must finally get rid of “all or nothing”. French President Emmanuel Macron recently reiterated the idea of an expanded political community alongside the EU. “Such a project would be more honest than the empty promises made to the Balkan countries.”
The “tagesschau” underlines that the German chancellor seeks to push forward with “ambition and temp” the membership of the Western Balkan countries, but during his visit to Serbia he encountered an arsenal of problems. “It was a moment when it became clear how difficult it could be with the Western Balkans and the European Union.” In talks with President Aleksandar Vucic, the German chancellor urged Serbia, a candidate country, to join European sanctions against Russia, where the chancellor told a news conference that “it is better not to do so when everything is over.” “In response, the Serbian president, in a soft voice, but quite determined, began to explain more words, why this wish will not be followed.”
Kosovo Olaf Scholz zu Besuch bei Premierminster Albin Kurti
The expert for the Balkans and leader of the European Stability Initiative, Gerald Knaus, assesses Scholz’s visit to the Balkans as very important, but also with “great potential for disappointment”. “In the last 10 years, people see that there is no progress, that the EU does not keep its promise,” Knaus said in an interview with German second television station ZDF. Germany is a country from which the region expects a lot, Knaus emphasizes, and expresses the idea of developing a “political ambition by the German coalition government”.
Concrete promises are needed, according to Knaus, for example, the six countries of the Western Balkans can be told if the conditions are met, then at least we will make them part of the European economic space.
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