Local and regional leaders in cooperation with the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, held today the Enlargement Day. After June's meetings of the CoR's Working Groups and Joint Consultative Committees with candidate countries and potential candidates, this unique annual event, organized online this year, discussed the role of regions and cities in the EU accession process and sustainable recovery pathways in the regions.
Mark Speich, CIVEX Chair and State Secretary for the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia welcomed that the Slovenian Presidency attaches great importance to the Enlargement process: “People live and work now, regardless of when the accession will actually happen. Now, they need kindergartens and schools, a running and efficient public transport, thriving local businesses, especially small and medium ones. They need functioning local democracy, lively civil society, free and reliable local media, fair and transparent public procurement, efficient and politically neutral local and regional public administration. In all these fields, it is our interest that citizens – regardless whether they belong to EU Member States or enlargement countries – exchange their experiences and views. This is necessary to reach the best results for all of us already today.”
Nikola Dobroslavić, President of Dubrovnik-Neretva County and CoR Rapporteur on the ‘2020 Enlargement Package’ said that all the Western Balkan countries should become EU members. “This is good for these countries, it is good for the EU, but these countries must fulfil all the criteria for the accession.” He added that local and regional authorities (LRAs) in their countries should be involved in all the processes. "We are not tired of enlargement, and consider it a valuable and crucial policy, beneficial in economic and political sense not only for the countries of the Western Balkans, but also for us in the EU. Enlargement is in our mutual interest. This is a standing position of all EU regional and local leaders, most recently expressed in the opinion on Enlargement Package 2020 which I had the pleasure to draft.''
Franz Schausberger, Representative of Salzburg Province stressed that "The European institutions must pay more attention to direct contact with local and regional authorities. Our dialogue with them is of vital strategic importance. It is about topics that affect people's lives. The transfer of know-how from municipalities and regions from the EU states to the development of capacities at the local level in the Western Balkan countries is particularly important." He also highlighted in his intervention that "The conference on the future of Europe must also pay more attention to enlargement and, above all, include the opinion of the people of the Western Balkans. In doing so, we must not always just point out the failures, but also highlight the successes achieved in the Western Balkans. This increases the motivation for further reforms. "