11 May 2022
The countries associated with the term “Western Balkans”, i.e. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo, are widely acknowledged as the next batch for EU enlargement.
The mass enlargement of 2004 and the subsequent ones of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013 cooled off the aspirations within the Union for further rapid enlargement. Despite the fact that the Western Balkans has long been on the agenda for the European Union, the integration of the region is slow and burdensome.
The Western Balkan countries, geopolitically and historically, belong to Europe, and their accession to the European Union is a natural process that will unite Europe and make the Union complete.