EU-Western Balkans summit discusses enlargement

The European Union-Western Balkans summit was held in Tivat Montenegro on Friday, gathering top EU officials, the heads of the 27 EU member states and the leaders of the five countries of the Western Balkans.

The focus of Friday’s summit was on achieving common prosperity and stability for the EU and the Western Balkans through further enlargement. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen: "Enlargement is merit based, but merit based does not mean slow. We have to make the enlargement process faster and more credible. In other words, if the candidate country delivers on reforms it has to move forward in closing and opening chapters and clusters on its path forward towards the European Union."

"Enlargement means that we can win economically. Become stronger politically. We can provide more security to our citizens. This is why the European Parliament has always been the biggest, and will continue to be the biggest advocate for enlargement," added the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola.

Representing Croatia in Tivat was Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, who along with holding a number of bilateral meetings, also outlined what Croatia expects from Montenegro on its path towards EU membership: "Our first expectation is compensation for Croatian POWs in Montenegrin concentration camps. This is a key issues and we want to achieve a bilateral agreement on the matter. The second is that we continue to work on finding the remains of the fourteen Croatians still listed as missing from the Homeland War. The third is that Montenegro continues with the processing of war crimes, which is especially important. The fourth is that we resolve legal property issues of Croatian families here in Montenegro. As for the remaining issues we have clearly emphasized the importance of preserving the plaque in Morinj honoring the Croatian POWs who suffered there, the return of the Jadran naval training ship, and that we finally restart talks on the border issue, which is extremely important."

On Thursday the Prime Minister met with representatives of the Croatian minority in Montenegro, vowing to help them preserve their national identity and achieve their goal of survival as Croatians in Montenegro.

Source: HRT