*The article has been updated.
BRUSSELS – “We are expecting in the next few months to close as many chapters as we have closed in the past decade”, said Gert Jan Koopman, Director-General of the Directorate-General Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR). He spoke at today’s session of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) as well as the joint session of AFET and Committee on Budgets (BUDG) of the European Parliament in Brussels.
Koopman stressed that all of the countries in the region are moving forward towards membership in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and that in the last 8 months, three of them have pretty much completed the task.
“I expect the first of the Western Balkans countries to join the SEPA on 1 January, 2025, namely Montenegro, with Albania and North Macedonia to follow shortly, and Serbia is also keenly interested in it, as well as Kosovo and, hopefully, BiH will follow not much later”, Koopman underlined, adding that it is “testimony of a new momentum”.
Koopman said that all six leaders of the region are also meeting every three months to discuss the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans and that the Reform Agendas, which are the integral part of this instrument adopted last November by the European Commission, of the five of the countries are “in the process of being approved” by the EC.
“I am optimistic that the first payments envisioned by the Growth Plan will be made within a year of the adoption of such a proposal made by the EC”, he stated, underling that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only country has not submitted the final version of the Reform Agenda, but that there is still time for this.
Speaking about the Reform Agendas submitted by Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, Koopman noted that the “ambition level is high, and it covers all the main areas, everything which is important to social-economic divergence”.
He clarified that the draft Reform Agendas of the five Western Balkans countries is submitted by the DG NEAR for an opinion to the advisory committee of the member states to get them adopted in the first half of October and afterwards the first 7 percent of the funds from the Growth Plan can be released. Koopman said that the meeting of this Committee is scheduled for 2 October.
In addition, he stressed that there is “a strict conditionality” for obtaining the funds from the Growth Plan, including the well-developed, independent control systems.
“The aim which is related to doubling the size of the economy of these countries in a decade seems possible”, Koopman underlined and reminded that the rule “fundamentals first” will remain the essential principle in the further EU enlargement.
According to Koopman, “there is no trade and there will be no trade between the merit and the speed” in the enlargement, which implies that each country should be accessed on its own merits.
Some members of AFET and BUDG expressed their concerns about the state of the rule of law in the EU candidate countries including Serbia, as well as the fact that BiH has not submitted a valid version of the Reform Agenda yet.