Hahn gives good news of EU enlargement

The European Commission over the next two years sees new opportunities for bringing the Western Balkans closer to the EU”, says the Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung, adding that perhaps this enthusiasm hides something of concern in itself.

You have no benefit from enthusiasm if words do not turn into work. With such a situation faced by Commissioner Johannes Hahn in the Western Balkans, who during his visit to Albania, said that the countries of the region should work on further reforms with concrete”, writes Wiiner Zeitung.

According to the paper, the possibilities of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo -- some of which have candidate status for EU membership -- are better compared to the period before a year and a half.

According to Hahn, Balkan states cannot only wait, but with their efforts to implement reforms must contribute. He in a conversation with journalists in Tirana stated that “has not yet been decided which states will be admitted first into the EU, even though some of them have already begun negotiations on membership”.

The Western Balkan states are in various phases, Serbia and Montenegro are conducting membership negotiations, Macedonia and Albania have candidate status, while BiH and Kosovo are far from there.

The “needs to be spent several years in order to overcome the scepticism for the expansion existing in the EU, primarily in Western European states. So candidate states are prepared for EU membership, but member states are not”, says the Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung.