Kosovo’s road to the EU discussed in Prishtina: Enlargement requires a shared vision

The return of enlargement to the centre of the European agenda, the differences among European Union member states over the pace and conditions of this process, and the challenges awaiting Kosovo on its path to membership were in the focus of a high-level discussion held on Wednesday in Prishtina.

As part of the discussion “The Positions of European Capitals on Enlargement: Perspectives, Priorities and Kosovo’s Road to the EU”, European experts, diplomats, institutional representatives and members of civil society analysed how the positions of member states are influencing the future of the enlargement process and Kosovo’s European perspective.

The event was organised by the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF), the Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe, the Balkan Research Institute and the French Institute of International Relations.

In his opening remarks, KCSF’s executive director, Dren Puka, said that the war in Ukraine has brought new momentum to EU enlargement and has also changed the logic of this process.

According to him, alongside reforms and the fulfilment of criteria, security, geopolitical alignment and the political willingness of member states are gaining ever greater weight in the enlargement process.

Puka said that Kosovo’s case highlights this contradiction, since the enlargement process should be based on merit, while Kosovo’s advancement is also linked to political decisions by member states, including the question of Kosovo’s recognition and the need for consensus within the EU.

France’s ambassador to Kosovo, Jean-François Huchet, said that enlargement has returned to the centre of Europe’s strategic agenda, but that member states continue to differ over the pace, conditions and manner in which this process should unfold.

According to Huchet, for France enlargement must be credible and merit-based, while the European Union must prepare itself institutionally, politically and financially for admitting new members.

He praised some of Kosovo’s steps, including its application for EU membership and visa liberalisation, but stressed the need to continue reforms, strengthen the rule of law and maintain engagement in the dialogue.

Meanwhile, Austria’s ambassador to Kosovo, Georg Schnetzer, said that enlargement constitutes a strategic priority for Europe’s security and strategic autonomy, but assessed that the current approach does not fully match the urgency created by geopolitical developments.

Schnetzer called for the process to be accelerated through concrete steps, mentioning among others the European Commission’s assessment of Kosovo’s application for candidate status.

He said that Austria also supports the simplification of procedures and qualified majority voting, as well as avoiding the blocking of the enlargement process by bilateral issues, while stressing at the same time that fundamental criteria and reforms must not be compromised.

According to the Austrian ambassador, gradual integration can serve as a way for candidate countries to benefit concretely from the integration process even before full membership, while the ultimate goal remains the Western Balkans’ membership in the EU.

The discussion also included Kosovo’s chief negotiator with the European Union, Jeton Zulfaj, who focused on the gap between Kosovo’s progress in reforms and its practical integration with the EU, on the one hand, and the stalling of the membership process, on the other.

Zulfaj said that, despite progress in some areas, Kosovo’s membership application remains blocked and the EU Council has still not asked the European Commission to prepare its opinion on Kosovo’s application.

According to him, the priority should be obtaining candidate status and opening membership negotiations.

Zulfaj also argued that the dialogue with Serbia can be handled through a separate chapter during the membership process, similar to the way the normalisation issue was treated in the case of Chapter 35.

He stressed that, in the current geopolitical context, Kosovo’s full alignment with the EU’s foreign and security policy, as well as with the Union’s fundamental values, should be taken into account when assessing its advancement.

The panel discussion was moderated by Florent Marciacq, deputy secretary general of the Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe and a research associate at the Institut français des relations internationales (Ifri), in Vienna and Paris.

During the panel it was stressed that member states’ positions on enlargement are influenced by how each state interprets the geopolitical importance of this process, but also by internal interests, security issues, the EU’s absorption capacity and differing visions for the Union’s future.

Participants assessed that after the war in Ukraine there is greater political support for enlargement, but this does not necessarily mean that member states share a common position on the manner and scale of future enlargement.

For Kosovo, it was said, the new geopolitical momentum does not automatically translate into progress towards the EU.

Its European perspective, according to the discussions, depends not only on meeting criteria and implementing reforms, but also on political cohesion among member states and the place Kosovo occupies in their enlargement priorities.

It was also argued at the panel that Kosovo’s European perspective should be treated beyond the prism of the Kosovo–Serbia dialogue.

In this context, the possibility of using gradual integration mechanisms and new forms of including Kosovo in various areas of European policies was also discussed, especially in those where the status issue presents fewer limitations.

Taking part in the panel were Donika Emini, executive director of the Balkan Research Institute in Prishtina, a researcher at the University of Graz and a member of BiEPAG; Ruth Ferrero-Turrión, a professor at the Complutense Institute for International Studies in Madrid; Kai-Olaf Lang, a senior researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin; Clotilde Warin, a scientific associate at the Institut Jacques Delors and director of the Europe Programme at Eastern Circles in Paris; and Doris Wydra, a senior researcher and executive director of the Salzburg Centre of European Union Studies in Salzburg.

The event was supported by Open Society Foundations Western Balkans, the Embassy of Austria in Prishtina and Sweden.