Olivér VÁRHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, presents the 2020 Enlargement Package and the Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans to the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) of the European Parliament during a meeting in Brussels.

2020 Enlargement Package and the Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans: extracts from the presentation by Olivér VÁRHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement and from the meeting

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Albania has pursued its reform efforts with determination, and the authorities continue to demonstrate their commitment to advance on the path. The country has made decisive progress and is close to meeting all conditions to be fulfilled prior to the first intergovernmental conference.

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, North Macedonia has maintained a steady pace of progress and further delivered on key areas of the rule of law, including the judiciary fight against corruption and organised crime. North Macedonia needs to keep up this momentum. I'm encouraged by the commitment of the new government to further advance the reform agenda, in particular in the key areas of the fundamentals.

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, For Montenegro, the report comes in the middle of a fragile post-election transition period. It would provide a helpful and quite detailed blueprint to the incoming government with a clear view of how to advance the EU accession path and how to deepen and speed up reforms, particularly in the area of rule of law.

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, The report on Serbia can serve as a key guidance to the new government once it is in place and a springboard for reforms. I hope they will use it in that way. Taking the reforms forward in a sustainable way will require a genuine dialogue across the political spectrum. The report encourages the Serbian leadership to urgently accelerate and deepen reforms, in particular on the political criteria and the rule of law. This will pave the way for Serbia to open further chapters in the EU accession negotiations.

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, In Bosnia-Herzegovina, In the past few months, we have seen some first positive developments in addressing the 14 key priorities, including the breakthrough on elections in Mostar and the adoption of the National War Crimes Strategy. More efforts are needed to address all key priorities. In particular, the rule of law.

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, In Kosovo, the political context over the last year has been volatile and not been favourable to making both progress on EU related reforms. In order to put back focus on reforms, I am looking forward to launching with Prime Minister Hoti in the coming days, the second phase of Kosovo's European reform agenda. The lifting of the 100 percent tariff on goods from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina earlier this year was a crucial decision which the EU has welcomed. It also allowed for the resumption of the E.U. facilitated Belgrade-Prishtina dialogue. The commission remains committed to achieving visa liberalisation for Kosovo citizens. We maintain our position that Kosovo fulfils all the criteria and we continue to call on Kosovo to make sure that all benchmarks continue to be met.

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Unfortunately, Turkey has not reversed the negative trend of moving further away from the European Union with serious backsliding in the areas of democracy, rule of law, fundamental rights and the independence of the judiciary. The executive presidential system does not ensure a sound and effective separation of powers, and it has further increased the politicisation of the public administration. We are concerned that civil society continue to operate under pressure in an increasingly challenging atmosphere. The recent crackdown on the political opposition is also worrying. The report also stresses our serious concerns over the functioning of the country's market economy, the development of intense trade relations between the EU and Turkey has been one of the key achievements of the EU Turkey Customs Union.

We noted concern the reduction of the share of the EU in Turkey's trade, the increase in Turkey's deviations from its obligations under the Customs Union, as well as growing number of trade irritants.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michael GAHLER (EPP, DE), How far have recent events in Albania from yesterday and the unilateral step to to change the electoral code there? How much is that damaging this path?

SOUNDBITE (English), Kati PIRI (S&amp;D, NL), As you are aware, these weeks we are discussing in the parliament a robust law of law mechanism for the next MFF and all the group leaders of the major groups have agreed on this being a red line for the European Parliament. Now, if we have this to for the Western Balkans, do you also see how we could have an effective rule of law mechanism linked to this economic and investment plan? I think the same rules that we apply inside should also apply outside.

SOUNDBITE (English), Klemen GRO&#352;ELJ (RE, SI), We cannot be satisfied with the progress in the field of fundamental reforms, rule of law, economy, functioning of the institutions and public administration. Also, progress in the field of basic democratic values: media freedom, freedom of speech, democratic election standards is still limited or in some cases, we also see the regression in this field. All this presents a challenge for the region, but also for our society in member states, because attitudes towards enlargement process is much depended on these discussions.

SOUNDBITE (English), Tineke STRIK (Greens/EFA, NL), 29 billion euros, it's a lot of money and I think it's not our goal in itself to play Santa Claus, as we would say in Dutch, in the Western Balkans. So it's very important that we really check and assess if it's also instrumental to the EU goals.

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, What I can tell you is that we have been participating in brokering a deal between parliamentary opposition, extra parliamentary opposition and the ruling governing coalition and the government. That was a success on the 5th of June. And ever since then, we're sticking to that because that is a solution that has been also blessed by ODIHR OSCE. We tend to implement the economic part hand-in-hand with the reforms. So they go hand in hand. And this is a message I will be echoing in the region, that if we see any backsliding or non continuation of the reforms, it is going to be very difficult for us to continue the funding.

We are ready to support the efforts of the Western Balkan countries to comply with our new approach when it comes to addressing migration. So we are ready to help them to defend their external borders, we are ready to help them to introduce border procedures, we are ready to help them to actually carry out return operations from their territories, and we are ready to help them with the humanitarian tasks as well.

SOUNDBITE (English), Oliv&#233;r V&#193;RHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, 29 billion euros. Don't forget, the 29 billion euros is not going to be only money from the European Union. We are investing 9 billion and we have the international financial partners who are also ready to multiply this seed money. But don't forget that it is also taxpayers' money in that region. So we will engage fully with the local authorities because it is also in their interest not to lose taxpayers' money and not to spend money on purposes other than in the plan.

Data do evento	06/10/2020
Reference:	I196148V
Formato:	16:9 format
Copyright:	© European Union
copyrightYear:	2020

2020 Enlargement Package and the Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans: extracts from the presentation by Olivér VÁRHELYI, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement and from the meeting

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