News

On 5 November, the European Commission adopted its annual documents on the European Union enlargement: the EU enlargement strategy and regular reports on the progress of Croatia, Turkey and the Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Serbia).

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas welcomes the progress made by Croatia, Turkey and the Western Balkan countries on their EU path and encourages them to push ahead with the necessary reforms, seeking to meet the EU criteria.

“The EU enlargement contributes to the stability, security and conflict prevention in Europe. The latest events in South Caucasus only even more increased the necessity to continue the EU enlargement”, claims P.Vaitiekūnas.

The European Commission, considering the progress of the EU candidate Croatia that was made over the last year, indicated that Croatia could wrap up EU accession negotiations by the end of 2009, if all the criteria were met. Croatia was encouraged to speed up its judicial reform, revamp civil service and the minority rights protection, as well as the fight against corruption and organised crime.

The progress report on Turkey stresses the necessity for Turkey to take more active action in strengthening democracy and human rights, as well as in modernizing the country. Particular attention has to be dedicated to the constitutional and judicial reforms and human rights, also relations with Cyprus must be normalized.

The European Commission praised the progress achieved by the Western Balkan countries and guaranteed that their European integration could quicken, if conditions were met. It is also provided in the given documents that in the autumn of 2009 the European Commission would present a feasibility study on the perspective of Kosovo’s integrations with the EU.