The leaders of the European Union and the Western Balkans held a four-hour discussion in Brussels on the challenges of the current geostrategic situation and ways to further strengthen EU-Western Balkans relations, the European Council said, adding that the EU Economic and Investment Plan will provide up to € 30 billion to help the region.
After the press conference of European Council President Charles Michel, European Commission President Ursula von der Layen and French President Emmanuel Macron, which was supposed to be dedicated to the Western Balkans, was canceled, the senior EU official said that the meeting “clearly and unequivocally repeated European perspective of the Western Balkans and the future of the region in the European Union ”.
He conveyed to journalists in Brussels the position of the European Council that “the war in Ukraine put EU enlargement in focus” and explained that it means progress in the accession process through reforms, strengthening integration, but also resolving bilateral and regional disputes such as normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina and internal political crises in Bosnia and Herzegovina.