Possible disappointment for the Western Balkans! What is expected from the EU Summit today?

At a summit in Brussels on June 23-24, the leaders of the 27 EU member states will consider all three applications for candidate status.

But in addition to those possible developments, there are other major developments that are worth looking at closely.

Approved candidate status for Ukraine, Moldova… but not for Georgia

All indications are that EU leaders will adopt the recommendations set by the European Commission last week.

This means that Ukraine and Moldova will receive candidate status on the evening of June 23, but must meet a number of conditions to advance further on their respective accession paths.

Georgia, on the other hand, will first face a series of conditions before the country achieves candidate status.

Perhaps, however, the most interesting part in the latest draft of the EU summit seen by Radio Free Europe is a sentence about Ukraine and Moldova that says: “The Council [Evropian] will decide on the next steps once all these conditions are fully met. “

Does this mean that Ukraine and Moldova will be ready to open accession talks once these conditions are met? Or does it mean that even more conditions will be set before each further step?

This would be the first time the EU would grant candidate status, but it would also attach conditions, so Ukraine and Moldova would be in a very unexplored territory.

Again potential disappointment for the Western Balkans

While EU leaders are likely to take the historic step of showing that Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia will one day be part of the bloc, those hoping for a future Western Balkans in the EU could face another disappointing summit. .

Leaders from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Serbia are expected to be all in Brussels to meet their EU counterparts on June 23rd for a Western Balkans summit ahead of the biggest summit. .

Northern Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia and Turkey are all official candidate countries for EU membership, however Bosnia and Kosovo are only potential candidate countries.

On June 21, the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, asked if it would make sense for them to appear, if the meeting results in another “no”, after similar rallies where Brussels did not share any good news.

He has confirmed his presence, although the atmosphere among aspiring Balkan countries is more than slightly weak.

There is still a chance that Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria could settle their differences before or during the summit, so that Skopje, along with Albania, gets the green light to start EU accession negotiations.

But Bosnia and Herzegovina will not receive candidate status, as the vast majority of EU member states believe it has not carried out sufficient reforms in recent years.

Meanwhile, Kosovo’s hopes of finally getting visa liberalization appear to be dashed, although there may be a commitment to launch the political process on that front later in the fall.

Macron’s New European Political Community

This summit will be focused on EU enlargement, but the idea of ​​increasing club membership still makes some countries, especially in the western part of the EU, a bit confused.

That is why EU leaders will also discuss the latest idea of ​​French President Emmanuel Macron for a new European Political Community over dinner on 23 June.

The French document, distributed in Brussels last week, calls for the creation of a new political body with decision-making powers, which will meet several times a year at various political levels and will be open to all European countries. “Who share a common set of democratic values.”

While Paris has tried hard to explain that this new creation would not be a substitute for EU enlargement, some countries are very cautious, for fear that Ukraine and the Western Balkans would forever remain in a kind of “half of the road ”of the EU.

Expect some hot exchanges for this, especially with a French president coming out of a real uproar in parliamentary elections over the weekend and may not be too keen on compromise.

Ideas for Russia are running out

Much of the summit, of course, will be devoted to Russia’s war against Ukraine – but there is a particular sense, inside and outside Brussels, that the bloc is running out of new ideas.

There will be a call to further increase military support for Kiev and to provide Ukraine with another financial assistance package worth up to 9 billion euros.

When it comes to grain stuck in the port of Odessa, due to a Russian naval blockade, many in Brussels still hope that the UN Secretary General may be able to resolve the issue.

And, in light of Moscow’s loud threats against Lithuania for blocking EU-sanctioned Russian goods from entering the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, there is still debate as to whether any written support for Vilnius will be included in the final statement.

Even with regard to sanctions, fatigue is evident in the corridors of power in Brussels.

As there have been difficulties in approving the latest round of restrictive measures, particularly a multi-loophole Russian oil embargo, the draft text is quite vague: “Work will continue on sanctions, including strengthening enforcement and preventing circumvention ”./REL

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