Czechia wants to push the Western Balkans agenda forward, such as visa liberalisation for Kosovo, during its stint at the helm of the EU Council presidency.
In an interview for EURACTIV Czech Republic, Prague’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ivana Hlavsová, highlighted several goals the Czech EU Presidency has regarding Western Balkans. One of them is visa liberalisation for Kosovo.
“This country was given conditions and met them several years ago, as confirmed by the European Commission at the time. However, the visa requirement has not yet been removed. This is a clear issue for us, and we will try to move it forward as far as we can,” Hlavsová said.
Other Czech plans are already taking shape, with France finding a way to unblock the dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, making way for enlargement talks to start for the latter, as well as for Albania.
Bilateral disputes are something the Czech Republic wants to eliminate from the EU enlargement process, Hlavsová said.
“There are so many bilateral disputes in the Western Balkans that it could effectively stop the enlargement process altogether. We therefore keep saying – solve your bilateral problems among yourselves,” the diplomat stated.
Regarding “her own” country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hlavsová indicated the ball is now on the side of Sarajevo.
“Bosnia applied for membership in 2016, and in 2019 the European Commission made an assessment of its readiness, giving the country 14 key tasks to start accession talks. The expectation is that at least some of them would need to be met to achieve candidate status,” Hlavsová explained.
According to her, a few smaller changes have been achieved, but no substantial progress has been made due to the complicated internal political situation.
“As the Czech Presidency, we would very much like to move forward with this issue, but the problem is much more on the side of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is not like in the case of Northern Macedonia and Albania, where these countries did everything and it was our turn,” reminded Hlavsová.
