In recent months, our world has fundamentally changed. What does this mean for the European Union? What does it mean for the Balkans? And for the enlargement process?

Dear guests,

The EU Meets the Balkans Forum is very timely in the current volatile context.

We have entered a phase where geopolitical competition and aggression in our immediate neighborhood undermine our efforts to consolidate democracy and threaten to turn Europe into a battlefield of competing interests.

For the first time in EU history, we are negotiating with a country at war. It is not just about candidate countries meeting conditions for membership, but we also face external disruptive forces that want us to fail.

We find ourselves at a defining moment. The belief that Europeans need to do more to protect our security and prosperity is widespread. Public polls show a large majority of Europeans expect us to take responsibility for our own security.

Today, we see our continent in motion! This is positive.

The new geopolitical landscape is moving our neighbors closer to the European Union as an anchor of stability and democratic values.

Today, more than ever, the unification of Europe is the way to consolidate stability and ensure sustainable peace and security. Enlargement is our most strategic policy tool.

The EUs offer is positive: it brings not just economic strength, but also democratic institutions and legal certainty. Most importantly, it means belonging to a community of shared values.

This applies not just to the Western Balkans and the East. Iceland plans to hold a referendum on restarting accession talks. Public sentiment towards the EU is at its highest in Norway in 25 years. And last week, for the first time ever, Switzerland attended an EU finance ministers meeting.

President von der Leyen recently said: “We are living in extraordinary times”. Extraordinary times require extraordinary answers. I agree with her; we should dare to think beyond what we know today. Many of our Member States do too.

We should think outside the box, in a time when there is no more box. Look at the new German coalition agreement, which defines enlargement as a geopolitical necessity. It opens the door to new ideas such as including candidates as observers in the European Parliament and the Council while phasing them into EU programs and policies.

I stress this here because a Europe in motion creates an opportunity to take bold steps towards completing the unification of Europe. Enlargement is a clear priority of the European Commission.

I know there is frustration in many of our candidate countries. In the past 15 years, the EU was often consumed by itself: a debt crisis, migration challenges, an important member leaving the Union, the pandemics consequences, and an unprecedented energy crisis.

But this period of enlargement fatigue is over. The current generation of European leaders understands that uniting our continent is essential to guarantee peace, freedom, security, and prosperity for all Europeans.

There is now an opportunity we must seize together.

That is why we are working on speeding up negotiations as much as possible. We are already seeing progress that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Earlier this week, we opened another negotiating cluster with Albania, the second since I took office 5 months ago, and likely not the last this year.

Seizing this opportunity requires leadership that embraces transformational reforms. It requires the ability to make difficult compromises. It requires a mindset, Ladies and Gentlemen, that breaks away from the ghosts of the past and looks to the future.

I know that often what we are asking is politically not easy. It touches established power structures; it challenges vested interests, sometimes touches on questions of identity, and requires a clear geopolitical orientation.

While it requires a clear steer, it cannot only work top-down. It requires the engagement of the whole of society - from civil society organizations, academia, businesses to local communities. Citizens need to feel they have a stake in this project.

It has often been a shortcoming of the accession process that the big benefits of EU membership seemed too far away. We have been asking leaders to spend political capital on major reforms, without being able to show benefits that change voters lives in the short term.

This is something we are addressing with the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans. It helps with financial incentives in return for important reforms. It will allow you to bring some of the benefits of the EU – on an equal footing with Member States – to your citizens and businesses even before you become members of the EU.

Some countries in the Western Balkans have already joined the Single Euro Payments Area, making money transfers faster and cheaper. This means that soon, for example, a young entrepreneur in Tirana can receive payments from customers across Europe as easily as a business in Vienna or Dublin. I hope you all join SEPA soon.

And there is much more potential, especially if we get regional cooperation right. Take, for example, the promise of the full implementation of the Green Lanes. They will help cut border waiting times by 50% to 70%. For any exporter from the Western Balkans to the EU, this will be huge. Especially now that European companies want to reduce geopolitical risk by investing closer to home, we should make it as easy as possible for them to choose the Balkans.

But there is still so much potential to unlock! This region will flourish once integrated into the European Union and freed from conflicts and borders – physical and mental – just as it happened in many other parts of the Union.

We are doing the same with Ukraine. We are accelerating the integration of the country into many more parts of the Single Market, even ahead of membership. Because security guarantees to the country cannot just be military. Enlargement is the political arm of security guarantees. They will also have to build on economic strength and secure energy supplies.

Whatever new ideas we explore in Ukraine to deepen economic and investment links will also be considered for all other candidate countries.

So, my advice to all candidate countries is: keep working on your enlargement reforms and on regional cooperation. Take advantage of the Growth Plan and other EU instruments to make it a success – and to show that you are ready for more.

As the Commissioner for Enlargement, I consider all 10 candidate countries equally and Im ready to invest in all of them to bring them closer. In some countries, violations of human rights, basic freedoms, and democratic principles make accession difficult. But I will not turn my back to any of you and will continue pushing to get all candidate countries to move forward on the EU track. I want to get as many of you as possible over the finish line during my mandate.

In the past months, the European Commission has launched many new initiatives. And every time we made sure that we are already factoring in our candidates. We did that with the EU Competitiveness Compass. We did that with the Clean Energy Deal, and again with the EU Preparedness Strategy and the Internal Security Strategy. Because it is in our shared interest that our future members are on board from the first day of implementation.

Next to enlargement, we need to think broader about the environment in our neighborhood. We need to look with fresh eyes at the Black Sea region. This is why I will present, together with HRVP Kallas, the new EU Black Sea Strategy before the summer. It will aim to address the evolving situation in the region, focusing on security and key region-wide challenges and opportunities (maritime issues, environmental and climate action, demining, among others).

This will be a key connecting policy framework for the countries in the region. Romania and Bulgaria sit right in the middle of these considerations, together with Türkiye who plays a key role in the Black Sea region.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The world is changing. And Europe is changing with it. This comes with new risks, but also many new opportunities. If we want to seize those chances together, and shield each other from the fallout of geopolitical changes, we need to integrate much more closely. And much more rapidly.

My message to the candidates is: When you deliver on implementing the necessary reforms, I will be your best advocate in Brussels and in the Member States so that the EU delivers as well.

I have no doubt that we can seize this historic moment and complete the unification of our continent. At last.

Let us rise to the moment together.