EU Balkans Summit, Italia's stakes for Ukraine's entry into the Union

Yes to Ukraine's entry into the EU but priority must be given to the Western Balkans. This is the position that Italia will support in Tivat, the pearl of the Boka Kotorska Bay that is preparing to host the EU-Western Balkans summit. The Montenegrin town, overlooking one of the most picturesque bays of the Adriatic, nowadays best known for Porto Montenegro and its super yachts, wants to show itself at its best in front of the European leaders. The ambition is clear: to become the symbol of a Montenegro ready to join the EU and, more generally, the showcase of the European aspirations of the entire Balkan region. The summit, which takes place on 5 June, will also be attended by the President of the Council Giorgia Meloni, who arrives in Tivat with a precise political message: to keep Europe's attention focused on the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) and to reiterate that the enlargement process cannot remain hostage to Brussels' hesitations.

The extraordinary summit, promoted by European Council President António Costa together with Montenegrin President Jakov Milatović, will bring together the leaders of the 27 member states, the representatives of the six Western Balkan countries, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The meeting in Tivat follows the precedent set in Tirana on 6 December 2022, the first EU-Western Balkans summit ever organised in a country of the region. The work will focus on the progress of the region's integration process, the implementation of the Western Balkans Growth Plan and the main geopolitical challenges affecting the continent.

The topic of EU membership was also at the centre of the discussion, with a comparison on the opportunities but also on the difficulties that continue to slow down the progress of the six Balkan partners. On more than one occasion, Italia has expressed strong support for accelerating the European path of the Western Balkans, considered a strategic investment for the stability, security, and competitiveness of the entire European continent. "We are in favour of Ukraine's future accession to the European Union, but Ukraine must respect EU rules," the Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani recently clarified. 'First of all,' he continued, 'it must defeat corruption, there must be a timeframe that is not very long but that allows this country to respect European rules. We are willing to help' and to President Zelensky 'I offered the possibility of the Finance Police contributing to the fight against Ukrainian corruption, perhaps by training the police. But we must also remember,' Tajani stressed, 'that there are countries, and I'm referring to the Western Balkans, starting with Albania and Montenegro, that have been waiting a long time to become part of the European Union. So I think it is right to give confidence to the Balkans, so first the Balkans and then Ukraine'.

It is no coincidence that on the eve of the summit, a Franco-German non-paper circulated that aims to speed up the enlargement process. The paper proposes to overcome certain steps considered excessively bureaucratic, to open the negotiation clusters recommended by the Commission more quickly, and to favour a gradual integration of the candidate countries into European policies even before their formal accession. Among the hypotheses on the table are progressive access to the single market, greater participation in European programmes and observer status in certain EU decision-making forums.