Speaking to European media, including EUROPE, in Sofia on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 January, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boïko Borissov and Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva said that the European Union should invest in the Western Balkans or otherwise there is a risk of other countries taking its place.
"If we are not present in the Balkans, others will come. There will not be a vacuum", Zakharieva warned. She also said that the EU should show its political support and affirm that the door of the EU will be open for the accession of the Western Balkans countries (Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - FYROM, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia) when they are ready. Stating that the EU helped these countries through the European pre-accession funds, Zakharieva said it was "important to be involved politically and not only to pay the bill".
Borissov meanwhile noted China's growing interest in the region. Turkey is also interested and Russia uses orthodoxy to play a role in the Western Balkans, he said. That is why we have to offer the Balkans "an outlook – without which, the fruit will be really bitter for us", he warned.
Speaking to press on Friday, the Bulgarian leader said that the European outlook of the Western Balkan countries was also through better connection with the EU. "If we give them an outlook, it needs to be through the construction of infrastructure, motorways, ports, waste-treatment plants and network interconnection", he said. The Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council wants projects to be co-financed by the EU (see EUROPE 11937).
Juncker furthermore admitted that "the improvement of the connectivity of the Western Balkans and Turkey" was of primary importance. And although the discussions on the post-2020 financial framework seem bitter (see EUROPE 11936), he advocated maintaining European assistance to make this priority a reality.
Even if Juncker has stated there will be no enlargement by the end of his mandate at the end of 2019, the European outlook of the Western Balkans is a priority for the Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2018. Without wanting to give false hopes to the six countries concerned, Bulgaria intends to reiterate their future in Europe.
"We are not promising a date (for accession) but we want to support their European outlook", Bulgaria's minister in charge of the Bulgarian Presidency, Lilyana Pavlova, cautiously stated. She reiterated that the summit organised in Sofia on 17 May between the leaders of the 28 EU member states and the six Western Balkans countries was not an EU "enlargement summit".
2025 horizon for Montenegro and Serbia to join EU
However, when asked about the 2025 horizon for the most advanced countries in the accession process – Montenegro and Serbia – to join the EU, as implied by Juncker in his letter of intent last September, Zakharieva seemed confident. Questioned about giving a concrete date for these countries' accession during the Bulgarian Presidency, she said that "this was not the most important thing to achieve". But if it is possible to convince all the member states on a date, "it would not be bad", she added, while stating that accession depended on progress on the ground.
Zakharieva also hoped it might be possible for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania to open accession negotiations by the end of the Bulgarian Presidency – in other words, by the end of June. The Commission will publish its progress reports on the EU candidate and potential candidate countries in April, for the first time in 18 months.
Relations between Bulgaria and FYROM are not always easy. But Zakharieva said that these relations had improved since Zoran Zaev's government had come to power and that this had enabled the winds of "a new trend".
Proof of an improvement in their bilateral relations is that Sofia and Skopje signed an agreement on good neighbourly relations last August. And, in Zakharieva's view, the most important sign is that of this agreement having begun to be implemented even before being signed (see EUROPE 11841). Zakharieva also noted positive signs as regards the difference with Greece on the FYROM's definitive name.
As a result, Zakharieva described the European Council setting June as the date for starting FYROM's EU accession negotiations as "very realistic", as long as Skopje continues its reforms.
Austria and Romania, which will succeed Bulgaria at the helm of the EU Council, have also committed to making the Western Balkans a priority. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)