The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, said that the accession of the western Balkan countries would unite the EU.
"I believe that the future of the Western Balkans is to be in the EU, it must be. I will not even call it enlargement, it is not enlargement, it is the unification of the Union. They are already European", she explained at the plenary session of the European Economic and Social Committee. The High Representative emphasised that these countries only have external borders with EU countries. "They are surrounded by us", she smiled.
Ms Mogherini then returned to "our closest neighbour": Africa. She said that without Africa's success, the EU could not succeed. "Like it or not, this is the reality", she added. According to her, African youth, considered by some to be "a time bomb", is rather "the greatest potential of the continent".
Asked about trade, Ms Mogherini explained that in recent years the EU had done "something similar to a revolution, with a new generation of trade agreements, agreements not only free but also fair". According to the High Representative, these agreements "try to raise - try, because it is a struggle - labour standards, environmental standards, human rights standards, all those standards that we like to have in Europe and which elsewhere in the world are not necessarily considered to be achieved".
Noting the many agreements already negotiated or under negotiation, the High Representative considered that there was an interest in "building a network of partners around the world advocating a free and fair trade agenda based on the WTO". Regarding trade relations with the United States, she said she believed that there is a real chance to improve them, because there is a common interest in doing so, given the links between the European and American economies. "It doesn't depend on politics, but on the reality of our economies and societies", she added. “There is a basis of common interests that will, at some point, emerge in a more powerful way, on both sides", she predicted. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)