EU to map out membership for 6 western Balkan states

15:36, 02.02.2018

The EU will hold out the prospect of membership to six western Balkan countries by 2025 as it seeks to breathe new life into enlargement of the bloc, strengthen controls on migration, and counter Russian influence in the volatile region.

A European Commission paper to be published on Tuesday setting the target for what would be the bloc’s biggest single expansion in two decades may go down badly with some existing EU members wary of further enlargement. But European diplomats say the ambitious timeline, albeit one that is more motivational than realistic, is crucial to tighten the embrace between Brussels and nations that emerged from the collapse of Yugoslavia, plus neighbouring Albania.

The prospect of future membership, however distant, has long been a spur for reform and reconciliation in the region after the Balkan wars of the 1990s. But “enlargement fatigue” after the 2008 financial crisis and eurozone debt problems — and the vote by the UK to leave the EU, previously a proponent of expanding the union — have cast doubt on that prospect, The Financial Times reports.

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Balkan countries