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On 9 November, the European Commission adopted its ‘Enlargement package’ – a set of documents explaining its policy on EU enlargement, which contains the 2016 Reports, in which the Commission services present their detailed assessment of the state of play in each candidate country and potential candidate: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius stressed that even when the EU was facing hard times and challenges, the enlargement process remained the key driving force for the transformation and modernization of the candidate countries, an anchor of stability and security in South Eastern Europe.

“In the face of various challenges within the EU and its neighbourhood, the EU enlargement process continues to be an important instrument to strengthen the EU candidate countries, to encourage them to implement reforms, and to foster regional cooperation. The EU’s enlargement policy is important in ensuring peace and stability in the region,” said Lithuania’s Foreign Minister.

Linkevičius also drew attention to the need to more effectively inform society of the EU member states and candidate countries about the EU enlargement process and mutual benefits, stressed the necessity for the EU candidate countries to gradually align their foreign policy to the EU’s foreign policy positions, and to continue the implementation of very important reforms in the field of the rule of law.

When commenting on the European Commission’s Reports and recommendations on individual countries, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister welcomed the Commission’s conditional proposal to start accession negotiations with Albania, if credible and tangible progress in the implementation of the justice reform is reached.The Turkey Report highlights the country’s, which is a candidate country and a strategic partner for the European Union, important role in addressing the migrant crisis together with the EU and its progress – the EU opened two chapters on the accession negotiations in a year’s time.  At the same time, attention was drawn to the recent deterioration of democracy, human rights situation and press freedom. The Report warned Turkey not to alienate the EU.

The Serbia Report called on the country, which has taken important steps towards the EU accession and opened the first four chapters on its negotiations, to continue reforms in the field of the rule of law. The Commission called on Serbia and Kosovo to implement the agreements aimed at normalizing relations that were concluded in the framework of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

The Commission noted Montenegro’s progress in a significant number of areas, particularly in the field of the rule of law, and also called for strengthening track-record in the fight against corruption and organized crime – this will determine the pace of accession negotiations overall.As regards the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Commission is prepared to extend its recommendation to open accession negotiations with the country. This shall, however, be conditional on the continued implementation of the 2015 Pržino agreement, notably organizing free and fair  early parliamentary elections on 11 December and reaching substantial progress in the implementation of the Urgent Reform Priorities.

In the light of this year’s progress achieved by Bosnia and Herzegovina in implementing European reforms, the EU’s General Affairs Council on 20 September 2016 adopted Conclusions asking the Commission to assess Bosnia and Herzegovina’s application for EU membership. The Report called on Bosnia and Herzegovina to continue implementing the Reform agenda.

As regards Kosovo, the Commission noted that the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, which entered into force in April 2016, provided a framework for closer political and economic relationship between the EU and Kosovo. The Report recalled that Kosovo’s progress in fulfilling the requirements of its visa liberalisation roadmap had enabled the Commission to propose to lift the visa requirements for the people of Kosovo in May 2016, if the remaining two conditions were to be met.

For more information about the 2016 Reports, please click here.