President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a news conference with the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in Tirana, Albania, on Sept. 28, 2021. Leaders from the European Union and the Western Balkans are holding an annual summit in Albania’s capital to discuss the six countries’ path to membership in the bloc. fight.
| Photo Credit: AP

Leaders from the European Union and the Western Balkans will hold a summit in Albania’s capital on October 16 to discuss the path to membership in the bloc for the six countries of the region.

The main topics at the annual talks — called the Berlin Process — are integrating the Western Balkans into a single market and supporting their green and digital transformation. The nations in the region are Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

The senior EU officials attending the summit in Tirana are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and European Council President Charles Michel. They will be joined by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The six Western Balkan countries are at different stages of integration into the bloc. Serbia and Montenegro were the first Western Balkan countries to launch membership negotiations a few years ago, followed by Albania and Macedonia last year, while Bosnia and Kosovo have only begun the first step of the integration process.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has put integration of the Western Balkans into the EU at the top of the 27-nation bloc’s agenda. The EU is trying to reinvigorate the whole enlargement process, which has been stalled since 2013, when the last country to become a member was Croatia.

The EU had made it a requirement for Western Balkans to reform their economies and political institutions before joining the bloc.

Ms. Von der Leyen mentioned a new growth plan for the Western Balkan countries that she will make public at the summit: opening new trade routes in seven specific areas of the EU’s common market for the Balkan countries, which need to implement quick reforms that in turn will be accompanied by investment.

Ms. Von der Leyen, speaking at a news conference on October 15 after meeting with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, gave no further details.

A bitter dispute between Serbia and Kosovo, a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008, remains a great concern for the EU before the summit. A recent shootout between masked Serb gunmen and Kosovo police that left four people dead and sent tensions soaring in the region seems to have suspended the EU-facilitated dialogue to normalize their ties.

EU officials have called on the Balkan countries to overcome regional conflicts and stand together as Russia wages war in Ukraine.

The summit, which is being held for the first time in a non-EU member country, takes place at a pharaonic landmark, known as the Pyramid. It was built in 1988 as a posthumous museum for Albania’s communist-era strongman, Enver Hoxha.

This picture taken on October 11, 2023 shows an aerial view of buildings destroyed by Israeli air strikes in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The “overwhelming majority” of European Union (EU) countries supported continuing aid payments to the Palestinian Authority, according to the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell.  

“…The overwhelming majority was against the idea or the proposal of suspending the payments to the Palestinian Authority,” Mr. Borrell said in Muscat, where he had been for a meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council.  Mr. Borrell said that the payments, about €600 million per year, would be reviewed and not suspended. The EU is the top international funder of the Authority.

The clarification came late on Tuesday, a day after the EU declared that it was not suspending development aid to the Palestinian territories. The confusion had arisen after European Commissioner for neighbourhood and enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, had stated publicly that payments would “immediately” stop following Hamas’s bloody attack on Israel over the weekend. Over 1,000 people including children and the elderly were killed and over 150 were kidnapped by Hamas from Israeli sites.

In retaliation, Israel began bombing Gaza on a large scale and stopped food, water, medicine and fuel from entering the strip of land, home to 2.3 million Palestinians. Palestinian authorities reported that 1,055 have died since Saturday in the bombing.

Mr. Borrell said that Israel’s response to the attack, “like cutting water, cutting electricity and food to a mass of civilians” was against international law. Israel had a right to defend itself against the Hamas attack but its response had to be within the limits of international law, he said.

Several EU countries, including France, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg had, on Monday, privately or publicly opposed the move to suspend payments to the Palestinian territories, while some others like Austria and Germany had temporarily suspended their bilateral assistance.

Foreign Ministers of EU countries on Tuesday met informally via video link and in Muscat and discussed how they could continue engaging the Palestinian Authority, as per Mr. Borrell, and they drew a clear distinction between Hamas, the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian Authority.

“We consider Hamas a terrorist organisation and what they have done shows – certainly – that they behave like this,” Mr. Borrell said in a televised press briefing, as he reiterated that the Palestinian Authority was a partner of the EU.

Mr. Borrell said that “collective punishment against all Palestinians will be unfair and unproductive” and “against our interests, and against the interests of the peace”.  Collective punishment is prohibited under international humanitarian law.  

Payments to the Palestinian territories was not going to be delayed, “because the Palestinian people are also suffering”, he said. The funds were going towards development activities, United Nations-supported activities and public services. Mr. Borrell said both EU countries individually and suggested the bloc might review the payments to ensure no payments were going to Hamas, which is an EU-designated terror group.