EURACTIV, Exit’s partner, sat down with MEP Viola Von Cramon-Taubadel after the 23-24 June EU summit, mostly dedicated to enlargement issues, the highlights being a largely unsatisfactory meeting with the leaders of the Western Balkan countries and a “historic decision” to grant candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova.
Von Cramon-Taubadel, however, called the decision “very cheap” and with little practical value. The talks with the Western Balkan leaders, she said, were “a complete failure” and the meagre outcome could only make Vladimir Putin happy,
MEP Viola Von Cramon-Taubadel (Greens/Germany) is the vice chair of the Delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and a member of the Delegation to the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee.
She spoke to EURACTIV’s Senior Editor Georgi Gotev.
What is your take from this “geopolitical” summit?
Let me put it this way: The decision on Moldova and Ukraine is, well, very cheap. It doesn’t cost anything to give them a candidate status in a geopolitically very tense situation. They can be with this candidate status in the waiting room, as we have seen with Turkey and the Western Balkans, forever. The candidate status is the least the EU leaders could do, without having any financial obligations. Of course, it’s good to have EU unity and for the Ukrainians – a goal, while they are fighting this terrible war.
On Georgia, the country has a problem. In the past, it was always the frontrunner, when it came to reforms, anti-corruption, modernisation of society. But now they have gone completely in the wrong direction. And instead of closing the gap, they have been opening the gap, making it difficult for the European Council to grant them the same status as Georgia and Moldova. It’s only fair to say: do your homework first, and then we will grant you the same candidate status as we have done for the other two.
Let’s have a look now at the Western Balkans. What did this summit achieve?
This summit for the Western Balkans was a complete failure. I have to admit that I’m terribly disappointed, and when the Commission was calling itself a geopolitical Commission, come on, this is a joke. Look: They let them travel to Brussels, all six of them, and they haven’t given them anything, they haven’t delivered on anything. Neither has Bosnia got the candidate status, worse still, North Macedonia and Albania didn’t get accession negotiations, and Kosovo didn’t get visa liberalisation, an issue that has been dragging on for four years now.
This is really a disastrous signal. There is only one person happy from this situation, and this guy sits in the Kremlin.
We missed from this summit the clear message that Serbia should align with EU foreign policy, and sanctions against Russia. Why is that?
Maybe – and I also heard it from the civil society in Belgrade recently – they don’t want to trade sanctions for democratic principles. They were very much afraid that if you push on sanctions very hard, you need to give up on democratic principles – media freedom, party pluralism and so on. So I’m not very much surprised. The real argument should be: If you don’t align with foreign policy, then we will suspend the funds. But I haven’t heard anyone saying this.
Regional ideas like ‘Open Balkans’ [spearheaded by Belgrade] are good or bad?
This is an initiative that is not based on principles, it’s not based on standards and criteria, and if we go ahead with this, we would actually undermine the merit-based process of the EU accession. So I would not support it.
We missed from this summit the clear message that Serbia should align with EU foreign policy, and sanctions against Russia. Why is that?
Maybe – and I also heard it from the civil society in Belgrade recently – they don’t want to trade sanctions for democratic principles. They were very much afraid that if you push on sanctions very hard, you need to give up on democratic principles – media freedom, party pluralism and so on. So I’m not very much surprised.
The real argument should be: you don’t align with foreign policy, then we will suspend the funds. But I haven’t heard anyone saying this.
How about Macron’s idea of a Political Community?
If you really want to create something for a broader Europe, that’s fine, but I heard that the understanding for this new format might be as a permanent waiting room for all those countries. This raises serious concerns. The least I can say is that the concept needs a clearer redefinition.
