PRISTINA – Minister of European Integration Mr. Bekim Çollaku, was a member of the panel in discussing EU’s enlargement towards Western Balkan countries. The Conference “EU Enlargement towards Balkans: How Europe sees us?”, which was organized by Kosovo Foundation for Open Society, had in its panels representatives of civil societies from Kosovo and the international Think Tank,.
In this conference, dedicated to the EU enlargement process in the Western Balkan countries and regional cooperation, minister Çollaku highlighted the importance of EU enlargement as an appropriate instrument to have a closer cooperation between the candidate countries and EU Member States. Furthermore, during the panel discussion, Minister Çollaku mentioned that ‘the Western Balkan countries shall admit that the enlargement is already based on a “strict and fair” approach, which means that the process is more complex, rigorous and unpredictable than before. On the other hand, the EU shall keep Kosovo’s and other countries’ European integration process dynamics based on objective reform achievements and not only based on the political point of view. Kosovo shall not be victim of refugees’ crisis or the fact that it does not pose a geo-political danger for the EU. Kosovo shall be evaluated based on its commitment and compliance of technical criteria. The first and utmost necessary step in this regard is the visa liberalization for Kosovo citizens’.