The European Commission has announced support of 171 million euros to encourage the development of infrastructure and the growth of the private sector in the countries of the Western Balkans.
The key project in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the purification of drinking water and waste water. At the same time, the Council of Ministers still has no answer to the key demands of Brussels in order for the country to open pre-accession negotiations. While we are behind a year without progress on the European road, the countries of the region are recording excellent results.
One of our first neighbors, Montenegro is an absolute record holder. The candidate country closed Chapter 13 yesterday, while the 20 remaining authorities are considering. Expectations are that it will become a member as early as 2028. Albania has opened all chapters, but it is still fighting a high level of corruption. Serbia has closed two chapters and has been stagnant ever since. On the scale, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina are the worst.
Nikola Radišić, European correspondent N1:
“In the context of European integration, only Ukraine and Moldova are mentioned as countries that are taking big steps towards the European Union, although their membership in the bloc is still a long way off. All other countries are no longer mentioned in the context of rapid European integration. What is known is that North Macedonia has been blocked by Bulgaria for some time, Kosovo is blocked by its own unstable political situation and the weak work of local authorities, Serbia is blocked by the government of Aleksandar Vučić, and the way it leads that country, while BiH does not manage to fulfill even the basic conditions that They have been standing in front of her for years.”
The world media once again started the story about the benefits for admission to the Union. So the Telegraph writes “in the new era of world powers, the EU seeks to become a bigger, richer and stronger “super Europe” capable of resisting the whims of the world’s autocrats”. They also state the following:
“The European Commission is considering membership “step by step”, which would allow Ukraine to join the bloc with limited rights until it implements all the necessary reforms. Such an approach, however, creates a domino effect, because the six countries of the Western Balkans, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, are also waiting a long time for membership and will require similar treatment.
European leaders are not yet talking publicly about changes in the approach to enlargement. Commissioner for this area, Marta Kos, resorts to platitudes in response to such questions.
Marta Kos, European Commissioner for Enlargement:
“Whatever we do in the accession process, we get the approval of the member states. So it depends on the member states how we proceed in the future.”
The authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily the Council of Ministers, missed a number of opportunities, but more importantly, they missed a moment in which the leaders of the Union were interested. What many feared has happened, and what the local authorities themselves are still realizing, the focus is shifting to other countries due to geopolitical relations, primarily Ukraine, Moldova, and very possibly Iceland soon, he writes. N1 BiH.
