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The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has proposed the creation of a European Geopolitical Community, which would include European countries that are not yet members of the EU. This would include the countries of the Western Balkans.
At the same time, Michel has confirmed that a European Union summit with the countries of the Western Balkans will take place on June 23 in Brussels. Sources in Brussels claim that this summit will be the one that French President Emanuel Macron had announced when his country took over the rotating EU presidency, which ends in late June, to hand over the task to the Czech Republic for the second half of this year.
“There is a geopolitical community, which includes the area from Reykjavik to Baku or Yerevan, from Oslo to Ankara. I am deeply convinced that a political reality must be confirmed from this geopolitical space. “And this must be done immediately,” said Michel, speaking at the European Social and Economic Committee on Wednesday evening.
To prevent speculation that these ideas could be seen as an alternative to the EU membership of countries in the enlargement process, European Council President Charles Michel has said that in no way is this idea intended to replace the current enlargement process, but the countries would gradually become involved in some EU sectoral policies based on the progress they make in the accession negotiation process.
“I want to be completely clear from the beginning. This initiative in no way goes in the direction of replacing enlargement or creating a new argument for slowing down the process. “Also, for those countries that participate in the European Geopolitical Community, this is not a guarantee that one day they will be members of the EU”, declared Michel.
He even said that “the EU enlargement process should be accelerated”, but also supported the ideas of “reversibility”, ie a country that will not continue to meet the criteria, to go back in the process. . Michel said such an approach would speed up the reform process in candidate countries.
According to the president of the European Council, the leadership of a “European Geopolitical Community” will be headed by the participating heads of state or government, and they will meet at least twice a year. The main areas of engagement would be foreign and security policy cooperation.
Michel said that he has already started consultations with the 27 leaders of the EU member states, while at a summit on June 23 in Brussels he will discuss this with colleagues from the Western Balkan countries. The EU-Western Balkans Summit will take place on the day the regular EU summit kicks off, on June 23rd and 24th.
Michel has warned that he will propose that a special summit be held during the summer where the leaders of the EU and those of the partner countries will gather to discuss his proposal.
The idea presented by Michel is in line with a similar idea that was recently presented by the President of France, Emanuel Macron, for the creation of the “European Political Community”.
Speaking in Strasbourg on Europe Day on May 9, and concluding the conference on the future of Europe, Macron cited the length of the enlargement process, under current procedures, as an argument for proposing ideas for new arrangements for EU relations. and countries that want to “share the same values”.
“We all know very well that the accession process will take several years, in fact maybe several decades,” Macron said at the time, noting that, according to him, “the EU is not the only form to structure the European continent into a short-term ”. Proposing the European Political Union, he had said it would be open to all European countries, including those who have left the EU. At the moment, such is only the UK.
Even the idea of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, leaves room for a Community to be formed, to include all interested European countries, regardless of whether or not they are members of the EU, candidates for membership or not aspirations to become a formal member.
European Union policy experts have said that the proposal of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, to create a new political organization with the aim of uniting countries that share EU values, but which are not part of the bloc, is a his attempt to stop EU enlargement.
Toby Vogel, analyst and expert on the EU and the Western Balkans based in Brussels, has estimated that Macron, through this idea, reveals the opposition he has in relation to the membership of new states in the EU.
Even Bodo Weber, a Balkans expert and senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council in Berlin, sees the idea presented by the French president as more of a tendency to stifle the enlargement process.
France opposed the opening of negotiations for Albania and Northern Macedonia in 2019. Macron said at the time that these countries still needed to make progress.
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