Preparing for Enlargement: The EU and Western Balkans’ Contributions

The EU and the Western Balkans are in the process of preparing for new EU enlargements. To this end, the EU has just adopted a New Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, that is supposed to increase their participation in the European Single Market. This intermediate step towards EU membership should open new opportunities of economic cooperation for both public and private actors, sustain Western Balkans’ internal reforms, as well as accelerate their path towards full integration in the EU. At the same time, the Western Balkans are expected to start contributing more substantially to the economic and geopolitical security of the EU, to deal with increasingly complex regional and global environments. Nonetheless, progresses of the EU enlargement will also remain conditional to the success of EU internal reforms, to make its policies, budget and institutions fit for an enlarged Union.

In this context, the conference aims to stimulate a strategic dialogue about the contributions by the EU and the Western Balkans to make next EU enlargements successful.

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Working language: English

Sala Aldo Moro Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Piazzale della Farnesina