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Zoran Milanovic, known as an ally of Vladimir Putin, considers Brussels' promises for the membership of the Western Balkan countries in the EU as empty promises, emphasizing that the Union is aiming to obtain political concessions from these countries, especially in line with the stance towards Moscow...
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic appears to have revealed a Brussels script for the Western Balkans, when he said that no new member would join the European Union. Milanovic warned that EU aspiring countries were being deceived by Brussels, which he said was offering empty promises to the Western Balkans regarding membership.
Speaking to students at the University of the North in Koprivnica, Milanovic described the EU's enlargement promises as "false", while emphasizing that they were made to obtain political concessions, especially in line with the stance towards Moscow.
He added that individual countries are expected to adapt their foreign policy according to the interests of the West, especially when it comes to confronting Russia, reports klix.ba.
Local media in Croatia echoed the statements of the Croatian President, who said that Georgia, despite strong economic growth, will face a similar fate.
Milanovic's statements also seem to reject the 'Albania 2030 in the EU' project that was strongly launched by Edi Rama during the May 11 campaign, becoming the headline of the entire campaign by the Prime Minister who received his 4th consecutive mandate to govern the country.
Albania, also referring to statements by Brussels bureaucrats, has emerged as one of the favorites in the EU accession process and could join the bloc by the end of this decade.
The Croatian President's warnings come at a time when Marta Kos, Commissioner for Enlargement, said that within my mandate we will have new EU memberships from the Western Balkan countries.
"We need to open another set of chapters with Albania and this will happen in June and with this we will have opened all the negotiation chapters. Then the closing of the chapters will begin, which is also a very important process ," said Commissioner Marta Kos.
Political leaders from Croatia, Slovenia and EU members in the wider Central and Southeast European region have pushed for enlargement to the Western Balkans. They include Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, Milanovic's main political rival.
Despite the promise of the Thessaloniki summit in 2003 for the region's eventual membership, none of the six Western Balkan candidates - Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro - have yet to join.
While Serbia has been an official EU candidate since 2012, it has not opened a single negotiation chapter since 2021. Belgrade has also been criticized by EU officials for failing to comply with Western sanctions on Russia.
Meanwhile, North Macedonia's progress has been hampered by bilateral disputes, first with Greece and more recently with Bulgaria.
But beyond his comments on enlargement, the Croatian president also had broader criticism of the European Union. “Europe is no longer the force it once was ,” Milanovic said, adding that the continent had lost global leadership in innovation and market influence to the United States and China.
" Europe goes to China and lectures on human rights, instead of talking about European car sales, whose sales are in sharp decline ," he said.
Regarding the war in Ukraine, Milanovic characterized the conflict as exhausting, attributing its outbreak to Western insistence that each country choose its own military alliances, thus distancing Kiev from Moscow.
Milanovic has repeatedly clashed with Plenkovic and other members of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)-led government over Zagreb's support for Ukraine.
He has opposed the government's strong support for Kiev, a stance that has put him at odds with Croatia's Western allies.
He also criticized American policy toward Israel, arguing that American "unconditional support" for the regime, rather than its people, had fueled what he called terrorism against Palestinians.
" The white man needs to realize as soon as possible that he is not the center of the world and that we will all be better off, " he said, joking that there has never been a coup in the United States because "there is no American embassy there ." / Pamphlet /
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