Borrell: EU to prepare for 10 more members, call for foreign ministers

2023-09-01 09:52:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

EU foreign ministers called on Thursday for a meeting with their counterparts from Ukraine and the Western Balkans, all candidate countries in the bloc, by the end of September to discuss the enlargement process.

"I think the war in Ukraine has had a collateral effect which is to speed up the enlargement process, which is certainly a merit-based process," EU High Commissioner Josep Borrell said from Toledo, Spain after an informal meeting of foreign ministers from across the 27-nation bloc.

Borrell said this meeting would give a political impetus to the process, a political objective, "a horizon" as the EU must prepare for 10 more members.

But as the prospect of Ukraine's membership in the bloc becomes more and more a reality, questions arise as to how this can be done without jeopardizing the European integration project.

Especially budget issues and governance problems. Analysts see momentum for enlargement, but the EU must reform itself first.

"Member states are just beginning to understand and face the reality of what the reform means, what will change for them, how they benefit and how they should contribute to the EU," said Mathieu Droin, analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies. and International (CSIS) in Washington.

Meanwhile, Hungary is still blocking the 8th installment of the 500 million euro military aid package for Ukraine.

Budapest argues that the designation of Hungary's OTP Bank as a war sponsor is "unacceptable".

The government wants the name removed entirely from Ukraine's blacklist as a precondition for further military aid.

One of the priorities of the Spanish presidency of the EU Council is to maintain coordinated support for Ukraine and to do so by strengthening European unity.

To ensure the sustainability of aid to Ukraine, the EU envisages the creation of an aid fund for the country of up to 5 billion euros per year for the period 2024-2027, which will be integrated into the European Peace Fund.

Borrell indicated that ministers had discussed the issue and hoped a deal could be concluded before the end of the year.

The status of the training mission of the Ukrainian military personnel from the armed forces of the member states was also assessed.

According to Borrell, a total of 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers have already received training, and the goal of training 30,000 by the end of the year will be achieved earlier than planned, by the end of October.

For this reason, the High Representative proposed to the ministers to increase the target to 40,000 trained Ukrainian military personnel in the coming months./ CNA