Committee on Foreign Affairs
The Chair
[ EXPO-COM-AFET D (2023) 18119]
D 305802 23.05.2023
Dear Chair, dear Colleague,
I would like to cordially invite you, together with a small delegation from your committee,
to an inter-parliamentary committee meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee on
27 June
2023 from 9:00 to 12:30 (CET)
in the European Parliament, in Brussels on
'Moving the
EU enlargement forward – 20 years since the Thessaloniki Declaration'.
The inter-parliamentary committee meeting will be structured into two sessions.
The first session will be entitled “The
cost of (non) enlargement”.
Since the 2003
Thessaloniki declaration, the prospect of the Western Balkans’ countries accession to the
EU has been faced with numerous internal and external hurdles. The EU enlargement policy
has been brought back to the centre stage by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
Russian and Chinese interference in the Western Balkans and the EU's Eastern
Neighbourhood poses an unprecedented challenge to the EU, which finds itself at a
crossroads: either it seizes the momentum and pushes forward with its enlargement or it
risks losing influence with potentially momentous geopolitical consequences that could be
felt for generations. This exchange of views aims at discussing what are the actual stakes in
the EU enlargement policy, what are the challenges it is facing and how it could help the
EU to increase its relevance in its neighbourhood for the years to come.
In the second session, we will focus on “Strengthening
security and democratic
resilience through the enlargement process”.
Despite the best efforts by the EU and those
aspiring to become its future members, further enlargement has not materialised since
Croatia joined the Union ten years ago. Political obstructions, lack of will, weaknesses in
the rule of law, pronounced corruption and nationalist tendencies in the region have created
weak spots, presenting opportunities to malign external actors to exert their influence and
play up divisions in an effort to derail the accession process, weaken the EU’s standing and
wield their own strategic and business interests. The session will look at the tools available
to strengthen democratic resilience in enlargement countries and boost the conditionality of
the enlargement process.
The event will be followed by a
working lunch from 12:30 to 14:00 for the heads of
delegation.
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