Merkel: Balkan Stability Is Stability Even for Us

A common economic zone, concrete investment plans and infrastructure guards. The EU invests a lot of money to support the economic development of the Western Balkans and draw it closer to itself. With that, it is aimed at resolving conflicts and curbing the migration of tens of thousands of young people and qualified labour forces.

At the top Balkan summit in Triest, the transportation agreement was signed: countries in the region, with a discussion Bosnia and Herzegovina, with that agreement, are in terms of EU legislation for transportation. This will have extreme economic impulses for the region, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Johannes Hahn said, in interview with DW. A new project was placed on the transport and energy fields. It is intended to set the groundwork for creating a regional economic zone. It even speaks of a so-called “Plan Marshall”.

We want to speed up international trade, which is actually paralyzed. We think, in the coming years in the region, that could be created up to 80,000 jobs”, Johannes Hahn said. By 2020 EU to spend one billion Euro “p to arrive somewhere in the region”.

I found this context of economic stability. But the region lies in the shadow of a bilateral conflict, which hinders it on the road to the EU. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is clear. “Stability in the region is political stability even in”, she stressed. Merkel added, that it is our joint task to care for, that these states have good development, that step by step, they can move in the direction The EU.

However, no one talks about membership prospects. Although officially no one in Brussels has claimed to have recently closed the perspective of membership, a clear question that would not be new officials within a time-predict deadline. Brussels now has other threats. Economic Union, as they think in the region, is a relief, or as you say, the waiting room for admission to the club. We are currently negotiating with Serbia and Montenegro, while with others we are still away from” v. Hahn noted.

Trade brings back, economic co-operation creates new confidence, points out Michael Roth, minister of state at hand. German Foreign Minister: “This is necessary in the region, it should not be the countries to be hostile among them. ”

Economic development will be possible, only if advanced to the legal state field. Because nobody's going to invest in the region, if you can't rely on a functioning system towards justice. We lack a functioning democracy and legal state in the region. The Berlin process cannot be solved. This can only be resolved in the framework of integration EU”, Balkan expert Florian Bieber thinks, from the University of Graz in Austria.

Germany began its Berlin process for the Western Balkans in 2014. Economic co-operation between Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and other member states is targeted. The EU, Slovenia and Croatia. Co-operation must create bases for membership The EU. A conference agenda involving Trieste included renewed co-operation, co-production of communications networks, civil society and war against corruption.