07-06-2024
The European Commission said on Friday (7 June) that both Ukraine and Moldova are sufficiently ready for the formal opening of EU accession talks.
For nearly 30 years following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the violent break-up of Yugoslavia, our two countries were divided over the “name dispute”, which obstructed the relations between our peoples and weakened regional stability and the European perspective of the Western Balkans, write Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev.
Enlargement to the East, and to the Western Balkans, is a geostrategic imperative and will require reforms on both sides, writes Paulo Rangel.
To catch the enlargement train, EU candidate countries must run simultaneously with the European Union, argues the EESC’s Dimitris Dimitriadis. He says responsibility for an increasing Western Balkans' disillusionment with the EU is shared.
A dozen EU member states have made a joint push to move forward the accession process for candidates Ukraine and Moldova and formally kickstart membership talks by the end of June, according to a letter to the Belgian EU presidency, seen by Euractiv.
In the next European Commission mandate, the enlargement and neighbourhood file is expected to be one of the most prized possessions when it comes to the distribution of EU top jobs between member states.
New EU priorities, such as defence, should not come at the cost of helping poorer EU regions, European Commissioner for Cohesion Elisa Ferreira told Euractiv on Monday (3 June) in Berlin.
EU member states said on Wednesday (29 May) they are hopeful to agree on the negotiation frameworks for Ukraine and Moldova in the first week of June, though some objections from Hungary remain.
The European, Economic and Social Committee has taken a unique approach to enlargement, using a future-proofing strategy to engage with EU candidate countries through a pilot initiative to include them in policy development discussions.
The UN General Assembly voted Thursday (23 May) to establish an annual day of remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, despite furious opposition from Bosnian Serbs and Serbia.
Georgia must repeal the 'foreign influence' law as it could be used to silence critical voices, according to The Council of Europe’s top constitutional law body, the Venice Commission, on Tuesday (21 May). Georgian lawmakers passed the controversial Kremlin-style law last …
Several EU member states called on Tuesday (21 May) for the bloc to start membership negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova by the end of June, but several technical and political obstacles remain for the decision to be taken.
Georgia's controversial 'foreign agent' law profoundly changes the country's relationship with its Western partners and the EU should take the outcome of the upcoming elections as a basis to reassess its ties with Tbilisi, the country's President Salome Zourabishvili told Euractiv.
Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday (14 May), Mehmet Şimşek added that the EU and Turkey share “equal blame” for the deterioration in their relationship in recent years.
Welcome to EURACTIV’s Global Europe Brief, your weekly update on the EU from a global perspective. You can subscribe to receive our newsletter here. What seemed like a breakthrough a year ago is now facing a stalemate: Neither Belgrade nor Pristina …
While the current EU member states need a specific day as a reminder that belonging to the bloc bears advantages, for those outside, every day is ‘Europe Day’.
The European Union needs to create clearer benchmarks for the rule of law and judicial reform in Ukraine, which could then be replicated for other reform areas, write Snizhana Diachenko, Liubov Akulenko, and Viktoriia Melnyk.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Belgrade on Tuesday (7 May) has raised eyebrows at a time when Serbia's President Aleksander Vučić has continued to resist increasing pressure to align foreign policy with the West, in particular the EU.
Twenty years ago, on a sunny Saturday on 1 May 2004, three former Soviet Republics, three former Soviet satellite countries (one of them having split in two), one former Yugoslav republic, and two former British colonies joined the EU.
Contrary to the current European Union reform debate, it is possible to have the enlargement process and deeper EU integration run parallel, former European Commission president José Manuel Barroso told Euractiv. "A very important lesson learned from then is that it's …
Showing courageous responsibility means today that we must make our European Union fit to take in new countries already in this decade, writes German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
European affairs ministers and their counterparts from EU candidate countries started talks on Tuesday (30 April) on how to strengthen the rule of law both within the bloc and in countries seeking to join it.
The EU should develop an 'equivalent' version of the World War Two-era US Marshall Plan to fund development projects in Moldova and war-torn Ukraine, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said on Monday (29 April).
As the European Commission prepares proposals for a further round of enlargement, the two decades since the 2004 'big bang' enlargement show the ups and downs that could lie ahead. On Wednesday (1 May), the EU commemorates 20 years since the last …
The EU's refugee funding for Turkey does not have enough impact, while the European Commission has failed to present a sufficient cost analysis and long-term plan, EU auditors said in a report on Wednesday (24 April).
