The EU needs to be open to expansion eastwards because if a geopolitical vacuum is created in the Western Balkans, it will only be used by enemy forces, the Speaker of the Czech lower house warned on Monday.
Speaking at the opening of a conference of European Affairs Committees of EU national parliaments (COSAC) on Monday, lower house chair Markéta Pekarová Adamová, from the TOP 09 party, said that while EU expansion eastward is not a consensual issue, and she understands the concerns voiced by some member states, the alliance needs to carefully weigh the consequences of rejecting EU membership bids from this area.
“Europe has been transformed, and it will never be like in the late 1990s again. We must accept this just as the fact that if we let some candidate countries wait before our doors, our security and prosperity will only be weakened,” Pekarová Adamová said, according to Czech News Agency.
“If we create a geopolitical vacuum in our neighbourhood, it will be readily filled with our enemies,” she added.
In June, EU leaders formally identified Ukraine and Moldova as candidates for membership, two countries that applied for membership immediately after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops.
In the summer, after years of delays, the EU-27 officially launched accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia. In October, the European Commission recommended that member states grant candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a decision that could be accepted by the member states in December.
The COSAC plenary session in Prague is being attended by up to six representatives from all EU national parliaments. There can also be up to three members of parliament from candidate countries and further guests as observers. As a result, the meeting will be attended for first time by representatives of Ukraine and Moldova.
(Ondřej Plevák | EURACTIV.cz)
Source: euractiv.com
