Skopje, 21 June 2024 (MIA) - Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani participated in a meeting of Western Balkans foreign ministers and "Friends of the Western Balkans" group in the EU enlargement process, held Friday in Vienna and Wachau, at the invitation of Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. 

In his address at the working session “Paving the way for Western Balkans EU accession through gradual integration” and the panel discussion “Western Balkans EU Enlargement: Time to get real!”, Osmani stressed that qualified majority for opening the chapters as well as gradual integration before membership are solutions to the consequences of the delay in the process of enlargement of the Union with the Western Balkan countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release. 

"We should promote this non-paper on qualified majority for Europeanization. Regardin membership, we can maintain unanimity for the time being, as this brings certain confidence to the European Union, but the opening of the chapters should be subject to a qualified majority," Osmani pointed out.

Minister Osmani, the press release adds, also elaborated on the necessity of gradual integration.

"I think the source of frustration is the process being binary: zero or all, all or nothing. You get nothing until you become a member state, and you get everything after you become a member state. This frustrates member states. This frustrates us. We need to make a paradigm shift, from the moment of membership, to the process itself, so we start to integrate into the process on the path to membership, in three trajectories: single market, political forums and cohesive and structural funds," said Osmani. 

In addition, Osmani expressed gratitude to the member states of the Union, neighbours and friends of the Western Balkans for the consistent support for faster and full integration of the region in the Union, stressing that it represents a geostrategic investment in the peace, security, stability and prosperity of the entire continent, reads the press release.

Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs