On behalf of the committee, I welcome Ms Ranka Miljenović, executive director of the European Policy Centre in Belgrade, and her colleague Mr. Strahinja Subotić, programme manager and senior researcher. Today's discussion is on the EU accession process and wider issues relating to the western Balkans. I welcome both witnesses and invite Mr. Subotić to make the opening statement.
EU Accession Process and Wider Western Balkans Issues: Discussion
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
I thank the members of the committee for having us today.
Apologies, I am obliged to read a formal note on privilege. To keep matters legal, I will do that first. All witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply.
Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I also remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex to participate in the meeting. After that formality, I again call Mr. Subotić.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
I thank the committee. It is our great pleasure to be here. Being in Ireland is part of our advocacy campaign. For example, by the end of March, we will have visited 20 of the 27 members states in the interests of engaging in discussions with the parliaments of the member states and with the various ministries of foreign affairs and think-tanks. Yesterday, we engaged with the Department of Foreign Affairs. Today, we will engage with the Parliament. Later on, we will have meetings with think-tanks. Our overall goal is to present and exchange views on the model we have developed for enhancing the enlargement policy. We named it the staged accession model. Before I continue to present the model, it also my pleasure that this is the second time the model will be discussed in this committee. When I was checked the committee's previous sessions, I saw that Miroslav Lajčák, the special envoy for Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, also gave us pleasure by speaking about the model.
To understand what the model entails in practice and how it is supposed to work, we need to go back in time to 2018. At that time, we first started developing the idea that what is required is the gradual integration of candidate countries into the EU, giving them additional incentives along the way to full membership, while all the time recognising the necessity to address the fears of the EU when it comes to the functionality of the Union in the future upon acquiring new members to the club. We did so because we saw that the enlargement policy was simply not delivering. There was a lack of transformative effect. When we quantified the level of reforms in particular, we saw that the rule of law and democracy were simply not being developed at a pace we desired. In many places, it had stagnated or slid backwards. We also saw that the influence of external actors, particularly Russia and China, was increasing in the region and that they were also trying to fill in this void. When it comes to people, we saw the EU was, unfortunately, losing the battle in the context of fighting for hearts and minds of citizens. I refer here to the citizens of Serbia, but we were also afraid that a similar trend might happen in the remainder of the region. That is why we started developing the staged accession model in 2018.
The model was officially introduced by the European Policy Centre and the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, with which we co-developed it, in 2021.
After the war in Ukraine started, we decided to further refine and make it even more detailed and published a template 2.0 for state accession in August 2023. As the geopolitical situation evolved and changed in Europe, our thinking also became more detailed and practical to address the needs of both the western Balkan countries and also the EU member states.
Now that members know our rationale, the model itself attempts to redynamise the enlargement process by breaking it down into four stages. By introducing stages, we tried to annul the existing approach to enlargement, which is binary - either you are a member state or you are not, either you have all the benefits of membership or you do not. We were afraid that such an approach equalises the frontrunners and backbenchers of the process. In other words, no matter how far a country has gone into the process and no matter how well developed it is in implementing the EU's vision and acquis, it is treated in the same way as backbenchers. This was creating a disincentivising effect in the region and we wanted to change that.
When it comes to the pre-accession period, we talk about two pre-accession stages. The idea of stages during the pre-accession period is to introduce predictability to the process. How do we introduce it? We suggest linking the level of reforms with new clear, transparent, increased and accessible benefits along the way to full membership. Those benefits are of an institutional and financial nature. Each stage is just a different name to mark a specific point in time from which a country has achieved a notable level of reforms and, therefore, should be eligible to have institutional and financial benefits along the way. Institutional benefits imply opening the doors of EU institutions such as the European Parliament, Commission expert groups, comitology and the European Council. We do so while preserving the autonomy of the decision-making process of the EU, the details of which we might discuss later. The overall aim of producing those institutional incentives is to start socialising our officials, politicians and experts already during the pre-accession process to allow them to exchange views with their EU counterparts and allow us all to start building European strategic autonomy, not just EU strategic autonomy in that sense. At the same time, this would allow our administrations to start working on building their own internal institutional capacities.
When it comes to the financial incentives, these include increasing the amount of pre-accession assistance. We advocate in stage 1, for example, that a country would have amounts equal to 40% of what they would be eligible for as member states. In stage 2, countries should have up to 60% of funds they would be eligible for as member states. When it comes to this part of the incentive structure, we see that the Commission has already made good progress by introducing the growth plan, which is an instrument that works as a top-up to the current pre-accession assistance while also having preconditionality at its core. Overall, we advocate for linking reforms with those benefits.
What gives particular merit to our proposal is that it is horizontal, meaning that we require reforms across all clusters for the benefits to be unlocked. In this way we avoid cherry-picking and prevent countries that might do well in economic clusters to have some benefits while front-loading the fundamentals cluster. Without the reforms in the fundamentals area or foreign policy alignment, we would not, therefore, envision giving additional benefits to those counties. Overall, the pre-accession benefits I outlined are supposed to unlock the political will of the candidates to implement the necessary reforms. We propose no shortcuts because according to our analysis, none of the countries actually fulfil the criteria to have stage 1 benefits. Montenegro, for example, is the closest to doing so. With the predictability principle ingrained in the model, Montenegro would know what else it needs to get done to start getting those benefits and it would have the feeling that the EU is ready to invest in it as a future EU member state, not just as any other candidate country.
When it comes to post-accession stages 3 and 4, this is also something that makes our model unique because we are not simply looking at this story from a regional perspective. As I mentioned, we understood President Macron when he warned as early as 2018 that the EU was simply not ready to integrate and absorb new member states and would require internal reforms for this to happen. We saw this as a warning because there were two kinds of fears. First, as I mentioned, there is a fear of whether an increased number of member states would cause the EU to become more dysfunctional. A second fear is that if, let us say, Montenegro is fully ready to join, it would have to wait outside of the EU despite being ready to fully join because the EU would not have time to complete its reforms.
With those fears in mind, we introduced stage 3, which is a new member state stage that implies all the rights and obligations for a newcomer. As was the case before, we would have the accession Act signed and ratified by all the full member states in their parliaments and in our national parliaments. In that sense, it would not be much different from the conventional membership. We do not advocate for second-tier members or a new layer of membership. The difference is that we advocate for introducing a temporary limitation of veto rights of the newcomers in the Council. New members would have access to the Single Market and Structural Funds. Their citizens would become EU citizens and have EU passports. They would have the right to vote and stand for election to the European Parliament. We would have access to the European Council where we could participate in consensus building. We could also influence and vote in simple majority and qualified majority systems in the Council, but we would not have veto rights for a certain time.
I should note, and this is most important when it comes to those post-accession developments, that we avoid second-class membership in two ways. First, we say that this should be limited to ten years. We have analysed and compared it with practice and we have seen that temporary derogations have always been part of the enlargement cycles. We used this precedent to go a bit further because we have not had those big concerns we have now when it comes to the functionality of the Union once it increases to 30-plus members. Therefore, we limit the measure to a period of up to ten years. It could be more or less. It would depend on negotiations.
Second, we would say that this limitation would expire automatically. Therefore, it would not be subject to another vote because otherwise we would be violating the principle of equality between member states. In addition, any permanent second-class membership would not be tolerated by our countries or the Court of Justice of the European Union. At least, that is how we see it based on our legal analysis. Of course, the legal document that would allow for this transitional period is the accession Act, which is on par with the founding treaties in terms of its legal power and has the ability to even adjust the founding treaties. Therefore, we would use it, as it has always been used, for transitional measures to introduce those veto limitations. We were even told by different member states that although they were a bit sceptical about this idea years ago, they are now saying that basically anything can be done with the accession Act. This idea is being actively discussed across the EU and we are also trying to grow the roots of this idea in our region.
When it comes to the interests of our countries, we protect them in two ways. First, we would allow for emergency brakes. Therefore, if a country foresees that its national interests are being endangered, it could refer the decision to the European Council and would have a right to participate on consensus building in the European Council. Second, of course, as I mentioned, it would automatically expire.
That is the shortest time in which I could present the model. Hopefully, the Vice Chairman will not mind me violating the time limit. I would like to end my presentation with a quote by the committee Chairman, Deputy Brophy, who in November 2023 said, "Business as usual will not give us the security Europe needs in this century." We could not agree more. We hope our idea will help allow us all to turn Europe into a more secure, prosperous and democratic community.
I thank Mr. Subotić. I will pass on to our Chairman, who is absent today unfortunately, that Mr. Subotić quoted him today. Does Ms Miljenović want to add anything at this stage?
Ms Ranka Miljenović
I thank the Vice Chairman and all members for having us here. Mr. Subotić mentioned all the basic elements of our model. We can go into detail if members have any other questions.
I thank Ms Miljenović. Deputy Haughey will be first to put questions.
I thank Mr. Subotić for his presentation and for outlining the staged accession model. We have a lot of documentation on it. Mr. Subotić could not deal with everything in his presentation. He is absolutely right that enlargement is not being delivered. There is a problem. The states that wish to accede to the European Union know that. The process is delayed for all sorts of reasons, which we do not need to go into.
As the witnesses know, Ireland favours enlargement as a general principle. They visited the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday, where I am sure they were fully briefed on Ireland's position. EU membership has been very beneficial to us since we joined more than 50 years ago. We can see lots of reasons to encourage enlargement and for these states to join the Union. I am sure the witnesses were told yesterday that the Government has agreed to open Irish Embassies in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Moldova and to consider the possibility of having a mission presence in Montenegro. That is concrete action and is reflective of why and how we are encouraging enlargement.
I have a few questions. What are the chances of the staged accession model being adopted? How is it to be adopted? Mr. Subotić mentioned the accession Act. What needs to be done by the EU institutions to adopt the model?
How are the western Balkan states doing as regards the staged model? If the model were to be implemented, who is doing well and who is not doing quite as well? Mr. Subotić mentioned that Montenegro will do well, given its circumstances.
Do the witnesses have a view on whether the western Balkan states should all join collectively or if each state should be looked at on a case-by-case basis? When I put this question to the Taoiseach in the Dáil Chamber, his answer was that applications should be looked at on a case-by-case basis and that it would not be fair on some states to be held up by others.
Mr. Subotić mentioned Emmanuel Macron's apprehensions. What is his view on the European Political Community? Is it a good thing or a bad thing or is he indifferent to it? Does he think it is helpful in regard to enlargement generally?
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
I thank the Deputy for his questions. I will try to answer them effectively. The first was on how the staged accession model can be adopted. Ideally, we think a good way to start would be by the European Commission proposing a communication that would link pre-accession to increased, attainable and accessible benefits of an institutional and financial nature, linking them to the specific level of reforms and then having the Council, as well as the Parliament, agreeing to the proposal. This would give a role to the Commission to recommend when a country has fulfilled, for example, a requirement to move from one stage to another and, therefore, that each recommendation by the Commission should be opening the doors of the Council or the European Parliament. We were expecting them to work together to approve a model that would insert this process of predictability. We would not like to have a situation in which the Commission proposes something and then the Council or Parliament simply refutes it.
In practice, we saw that the EU chose to have a more inductive approach. Instead of an overarching communication on the staged process as a whole, the Commission published a communication on the financial incentives. We would expect it to tackle the issue of institutional incentives in a different communication that would follow. The financial incentives part of our proposal is already being developed in practice. We had the Commission publishing the communication and the member states agreeing to allocate €2 billion of grants to give worth to the proposal. Now it is up to the Council and the European Parliament to adopt the growth plan. We see this as very important. The Director General for European Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, NEAR, Gert Jan Koopman, said at our event that the new growth plan represents a "form of states' accession". It was quite encouraging to us to hear that we, as a think tank, managed to influence the Commission and, subsequently, member states. Our model has already impacted on some EU policy decisions.
When it comes to the growth plan, we worked in two ways. First, we made the Commission realise that the preconditionality needs to be at the core of any future financial developments. The growth plan says that if the set of targets agreed at a semester level are fulfilled, countries would have access to increased financial assistance during the pre-accession period. The Commission does not use the word "stages" but it talks about targets. We were not expecting it to copy our model but, in practice, this is the closest it could get. We hope it will make meaningful change on the ground, particularly as it front-loads the conditionality in practice.
Second, we see the moneys provided as a notable increase in contrast to the existing funds. We have the instrument for pre-accession assistance, IPA, and then we will have a growth plan that would be used as top-up. According to our estimations, when we combine IPA and the growth plan, the funding is approximately two thirds of what we proposed for stage one. It is not as much as we wanted it to be but we still see it as a good interim solution until the next IPA is adopted for the period after 2027. We hope Ireland, which will chair the Presidency in 2026, will be a valuable presence because it will be setting the stage for the upcoming enlargements in the new institutional cycle. We hope, for example, that the next IPA will be much bigger in size in order that we can increase the carrot but also increase the opportunity costs of those who are not willing the grab the carrot and implement the reforms.
On the other hand, we hope Ireland and the other countries that precede it will help us to devise a strategy on how to give life to the institutional incentives for which we advocated. We see it as very important to allow our countries to socialise, to be informed on time and, as I mentioned, to truly work towards building this European strategic autonomy. Miroslav Lajčák, when we spoke to him at a meeting, told us the EU simply forgot about the western Balkans when the pandemic started. This has caused very negative shockwaves. The EU changed its decision in the subsequent weeks but the damage was already done. With institutional participation, we would avoid those mistakes and give the ability to the EU to act as a stronger geopolitical player in the region. That is how it could work in practice, at least when it comes to the pre-accession stages. Of course, it could also be applied to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. However, we might need different calculations because Ukraine is a bigger country and so on and because our project finance applies only to the western Balkans part of the analysis.
Moving on to the post-accession stages and the veto limitations, accession Acts, as I mentioned, are supposed to be used as a tool. We would try to use the precedents and go a bit beyond them. Of course, we would need more details from the Commission and member states jointly to produce something that would really make it work, while respecting the principle of equality between member states. However, although we are still in the early stages of having the veto limitations in the future, we do not yet know when countries will join the EU. When I was in Georgia recently, I was told by the Georgian President that at the margins of the Munich Security Conference, she and her colleague from Ukraine were approached by representatives of EU member states inquiring about the possibility of introducing veto limitations as a way forward upon countries' accession to the EU. This encourages us that the EU is quite serious about making enlargement work. I did not have time to mention in my opening statement that with the veto limitations, the overall idea is to allow the EU more time to continue internally reforming itself while having the newcomers that are reformed on the inside.
As stage 4 is the conventional membership stage which has no veto limitations, it could be initiated automatically once the veto rights lapse or if the EU is successful in, for example, internally reforming itself then there would be a fewer number of areas in which to use veto rights. So we would have, maybe, our stage converging with the new realities on the ground of a future reformed Union.
Ms Ranka Miljenović
When it comes to applying the model on the current situation in the countries in the western Balkans we would say that none of the countries are ready to go to stage 1. All of them are below the average level of moderate preparedness for membership and all of them are thus below the threshold for stage 1.
Montenegro is the closest to reaching stage 1. They have only one or two chapters that need to obtain the mark of moderate preparedness for membership and then they would then pass the threshold or mark 3, when it comes to our model. In all other clusters, Montenegro is doing quite well. Some of our calculations say that when Montenegro passes through stage 1, it can easily and quickly go to stage 2 because it has several clusters that are already close to mark 4, which would be a good level of preparedness.
After Montenegro, based on our model, there is North Macedonia. It is quite close to reaching stage 1. In third place is Serbia and Albania is getting quite close to Serbia. However, the problem is Serbia is backsliding when it comes to the rule of law, which is a cluster 1 fundamental. It is quite questionable when Serbia can definitely reach stage 1 because in our model we envisage the supremacy of cluster 1 because for all other clusters in the EU enlargement methodology, the average mark of the cluster is taken into account while calculating the country's ranking.
Why cluster 1? It is related to the fundamentals regarding the rule of law, the judiciary, minority rights, economic governance and the functioning of democratic institutions. We envisage that all chapters and all of the areas of cluster 1 need to reach the average mark of a moderate level of preparedness to have them at stage 1. Taking into account that Serbia is backsliding in respect of the rule of law and the function of democratic institutions, we can expect that even Albania, in a short period, will pass Serbia and move into third place.
On the other hand, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo perform quite low in our model. Both of them are at the very beginning of the model. It is not expected that they will reach stage 1 in the near future.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
Maybe Ms Miljenović can mention comparisons with other countries.
Ms Ranka Miljenović
Yes, if the committee is interested I can mention that. We ranked the countries and calculated the marks based on the European Commission's annual report on the progress of countries towards the EU. For the first time, in 2023 Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova have been assessed by the European Commission. That has enabled us to compare the western Balkan countries with the progress of these three countries. We applied our model to them and they are much closer to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Kosovo than to the front runners in the western Balkans. Our model can also be applied to these countries but we still have not many any deeper calculations. As Mr. Subotić mentioned, we focused on the western Balkans.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
When it comes to those backbenchers, although they are still in the early stages of the process, stage 1 would be an interim goal that they could aim for. Membership for Bosnia, for example, is an impossible idea. It is hard to expect to have a promise of membership as a driving force whereas if they knew it was stage 1, although they would need to work a lot to attain stage 1, it is an interim checkpoint they could strive for.
To go back to the questions, when it comes to the post-accession period there are safeguard clauses. We also use the accession Acts to introduce safeguard clauses, as a complementary tool, to safeguard the interests of the EU. The Croatian, Bulgarian and Romanian accession Acts contain them. In those Acts, it is said that the safeguard clauses, if activated, can suspend certain provisions of the accession Acts if there is backsliding in the area of justice and home affairs, and second, in the area of internal markets. So we hope that we could do two things. First, extend the number of areas in which these clauses could be applied in the case of our countries. Second, extend the duration during which those clauses can be activated. Currently a Commission or single member state can ask for these to be activated within three years upon membership and, once activated, the benchmarks would last indefinitely. We would propose extending that after ten years as the veto limitations would be limited after ten years and, therefore, give more time to the EU to activate them in case they notice that within one decade, a country or a newcomer is backsliding. We always go back to the accession Act as a tool that would allow these things to happen.
There was one further question on the Macron initiative.
On the European Political Community, yes.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
The EPC, yes.
If our guests do not have a view then they do not have a view.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
We wrote a paper about the initiative and covered it as well. We see it as a separate initiative that was born in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine. It is a valuable initiative that was supposed to send a message to Russia that Europe stands together, that they can work together despite their differences and that we would not tolerate any attempt to use aggression as a legitimate means of achieving goals.
I give the floor to Senator Chambers, who is online. Does the Senator want to ask a question? She is mute, I am afraid, so there is a difficulty there. I will come back to the Senator, if that is all right? Fine.
I will ask a couple of questions. The European Policy Centre, or CEP, has a very detailed process and we have looked at that. We had evidence from all candidate countries for Union membership. We visited many of them. I want to approach this matter not from a process perspective but a politics perspective but maybe that is outside the remit of our guests. Mr. Subotić rightly quoted our Cathaoirleach or Chairman that we need speedier alacrity in dealing with nations who want to be part of the European family as they seem to be on endless hold. I think that was certainly true in respect of the western Balkans. The fillip from the Russian aggression in Ukraine obviously spurred a different mindset within the Union.
I am interested in the witnesses' perspective as we detected, certainly from ambassadors from the western Balkan countries giving evidence here, a degree of frustration - to put it in a kind way - that the EU looked to Ukraine, even to Moldova and to Georgia, in a way that it had not embraced the application of the western Balkans. It should not be a competition. There are standards. The issue that was constantly said to us both publicly and privately, certainly in meetings in candidate countries, is to give confidence to people that there was a positive progression towards full membership and to give acknowledgement of that. In that context, is this staging about which Mr. Subotić is speaking, a helpful process? Is it another bureaucratic layer to give the impression that in essence, they will never be members because there is an endless series of processes that they need to achieve and this sort of second-tier membership is all they can have. How do we deal with that political point? That is my first question.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
I thank the Chair. To some, our model may seem to be a new technocratic exercise. That may be the case if looked at from the perspective of how detailed we are. We would not expect the EU to expect any proposal to be less detailed because we unfortunately tried sometimes to do the work of EU institutions-----
The issue I am making is not about the level of detail. We are all technocrats-----
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
I was getting there, yes.
-----and we know the detail. The problem is the people that we need to bring with us-----
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
Right, that is the second part of the coin-----
-----who are not going to engage in that level of detail.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
Yes, of course. The details will be covered by the Council and by member states.
As a country that deals with many referendums, we are prone to a lot of referendums, we have to do a great deal of explaining to people on matters that normally are not explained in that level of detail to the general electorate. We found that to be a very useful and good thing.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
That is a legitimate point of concern. I was trying to say that despite being detailed, it is at the same time very straightforward. We engage with media on the discussions on new member states in our countries. It could not be more straightforward than this: if you do your job, you get your benefits, the EU opens the door of its institutions, you are being accepted, you get twice as much of the funds and money, you can see notable changes in your life already during your lifetime, during the lifetime of the pre-accession period. That is why we had all western Balkan governments adopting the new growth plan. They see that this opens up new opportunities because it allows us to fight the socioeconomic gap. The media and citizens agree with this idea because we had floods of interviews to talk about this new initiative. It has already brought positive developments. The more benefits, the more people will become convinced that the EU is indeed serious in its intention to invest in our countries as future member states.
When it comes to the concerns about second-class membership, Ms Miljenović can share her thoughts on our experience so far in the matter.
Ms Ranka Miljenović
As Mr. Subotić mentioned, our model does not actually support second-class membership, although stage 3 might seem like second-class membership. However, take into account that we proposed that the veto derogation period would expire automatically after a certain period of time. Our proposal is up to ten years but it can be agreed for five or seven years. It is up to member states and the negotiations what that will be. After that time, it will automatically expire and the new member states will become conventional member states with all the rights and obligations, including the veto power that also relates to safeguarding clauses that Mr. Subotić has just mentioned. If these safeguarding clauses are limited to five, seven or ten years and if they are not activated by the European Commission or any other member state, they will automatically expire and the countries still will become conventional member states.
We have also spoken to the governments in the western Balkan countries. Some of them are quite supportive of our model even if that means that for a certain period, they would have limited powers and limited rights when it comes to the Council and decision-making in the Council. Only one government in the region - members might guess which one that is - had some reservations about the model. However, even that government unofficially mentioned that it could be the last card on the table while negotiating. We can conclude that governments, if they can count on benefits and progressive benefits during this process, they are willing and ready to give up some future benefits they would have.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
The same would apply to Georgia or maybe Ukraine. As the President of Georgia mentioned, for them, membership of the EU is an existential matter. Whether we would have veto rights or not for five, seven or ten years is irrelevant. We look at this as a long-term investment in our joint future. The front-runner in this way of thinking is North Macedonia. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially talks about it publicly, using the same rhetoric. Of course, one of the countries would require particular convincing in the meantime. However, as Ms Miljenović said, if the EU is serious about its intentions to provide additional benefits, we can send a whole picture that we would require new members to renounce some of those veto rights voluntarily.
Ms Ranka Miljenović
In addition to what Mr. Subotić has said, to compensate the new member states for their willingness to give up the veto rights, we envisage they will contribute to the EU budget 50% of what they would actually contribute if they were conventional member states. That would be a balance for accepting these derogations.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
That is one of three proposals. That would be the ideal from our perspective. We have more details on this.
I want to continue on the issue of public support for enlargement within the Balkans because it is important. Much of the evidence we have heard is that the process has taken so long that people have gone cold on the idea. As often happens as politicians, we can be refining the detail of the best but the people have moved on because they are tired of the wait. Is any polling being carried out by the witnesses? Have they any indication of the attitudes of the people living in the western Balkans in particular, towards either the progress towards full membership or what has happened over the past ten to 15 years?
Ms Ranka Miljenović
Our think tank has not done any public polling by ourselves but we follow closely the official polls in all the western Balkan countries. We share the Chair's view that there is definitely fatigue among our populations, that is, among the citizens of the western Balkans. Members may recall that in 2003, during the Thessaloniki Summit, we were promised a European future. For the citizens in our countries this process has been going on for 20 years now. Many of them have become tired of technical, bureaucratic issues.
When you mention chapters, that does not mean anything to them unless they experience real benefits. For example, in Serbia, the highest support for EU integration was when the visa for the Schengen zone was abolished. In that period, more than two thirds, or 70%, of the citizens of Serbia supported EU enlargement. Today, the situation is a bit different. The highest support for EU integration is in Albania and Kosovo. It is more than 90% in these countries. Even in Montenegro, which is considered the front runner in the region when it comes to EU accession negotiations, support is lower than in Albania and Montenegro. Support in Montenegro stands at approximately 70%.
In North Macedonia, the situation is quite interesting because the citizens there traditionally supported enlargement and EU accession. The numbers were quite high. However, due to bilateral issues they had with several member states, they had to change their constitutional warrants and now they are also stuck with the other member states. Support is decreasing because they see that they have done everything - they changed their constitution - but they are not progressing and are blocked all the way.
Our model can support the changing of this situation because, according to it, a country can progress and receive the benefits separately of the bilateral issues it has with the countries in the region or with the member states. We advocated that all the bilateral issues be resolved prior to accession in order that we do not import any problems to the EU, but to progress and to receive benefits that would not depend on bilateral issues.
The worst situation when it comes to EU support is in Serbia, with approximately 44% of citizens being pro-European, according to the latest poll done by the Ministry of European Integration.
I thank Ms Miljenović. I have a question from one of our members online but for some reason the audio link is gone. It is from Senator Chambers who asks if we have a body of work to do to identify the potential arguments against expansion and seek to positively and constructively address these concerns. Ultimately, we will have to win votes in different countries to progress. I think the Senator is looking at it from the other perspective, and that is the resistance to expansion within existing member states. Has Mr. Subotić a view on that?
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
All public opinion shows that support for EU enlargement has not been as great for a long time, namely, since the big-bang enlargement in 2004. We certainly have this momentum, and we seem to have the EU citizens on our side, I am not sure whether that is in each member state but it is in the majority of member states. The fact that we are advocating for governments to renounce some of their veto rights is supposed to address the fears of those citizens who are afraid that our countries might turn into a new Hungary and misuse their vetoes. We do it effectively.
People do not need to be afraid. This is something that each member state should communicate. The western Balkans would not tip the balance. We would not have any meaningful impact on the EU's budget. Enlarging to the western Balkans six, as a whole, in the future would amount to €5 per capita at an EU level, which is practically nothing in terms of the overall EU budget. Therefore, the economic concerns are not there. The political ones are not there. What they would favour is pushing out China and Russia in particular from the region. One of the members, maybe the Leas-Chathaoirleach, mentioned that without the Balkans we finally cancelled the illusion that Europe can be safe without the western Balkans. As we would not be costly, and we would not, therefore, would not be difficult to manage, we believe that we can bring something to the table, and we could also finally do away with the grey zone that the western Balkans currently is. There is a grey zone which prevents Hungary from being connected to Greece and Bulgaria being connected to Croatia. That is another benefit that would at the same time assist them in believing that we could make this work.
The red line is Türkiye. That is something they would not ask about. We see that the Commission is aware of this, and that is why we did not propose the revised methodology to be applied to Türkiye. It did not apply. Then you go off-line to Türkiye. We already see that the western Balkans is being prioritised. I hope it works in practice, because I would agree with the Taoiseach, who mentioned in January that we will lose people if this is overly prolonged and that this is the decade in which something needs to happen.
I thank Mr. Subotić. I agree with him entirely. The concerns of most member states in terms of the western Balkans are not economic. They are the implications of another Hungary that might move away from the fundamental basis of our understanding of the European Union in terms of a free press, free universities and a functioning democracy that allows full debate. To maintain that post-accession is a critical issue that, probably, is not articulated publicly but it is the underlying concern.
I am wondering-----
Senator Haughey. Deputy Haughey, forgive me.
I was a Senator once. Is Türkiye a lost cause? What is Mr. Subotić's view? I will rephrase that.
I think the Senator should.
Of course, the Turks are lovely people. In the context of the European Policy Centre's model, the Leas-Chathaoirleach mentioned the political considerations. There are some very serious political considerations when it comes to Türkiye. How is the latter doing? I will put it that way.
Our guests do not need to answer any question they do not want to.
It is merely a technical question.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
We cannot say at this point in time. It is simply they have frozen negotiations. They are not part of our scope.
They are not part of the centre's scope.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
Yes.
Ms Ranka Miljenović
We did a simulation because they have country reports. We did a simulation on how Türkiye stands if you apply our model, but, to be honest, I cannot remember because-----
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
Türkiye is not in stage 1.
Ms Ranka Miljenović
-----because it was not in my focus. As Mr. Subotić mentioned, it is not in stage 1, but as to whether it is close maybe or is it at the level of Kosovo and Bosnia, I cannot remember.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
They are well developed in terms of economy but, of course, they are struggling with the fundamentals. That is the essence of Türkiye in foreign policy. I go back to one of the sub-questions, do we keep the regatta principle or go and block when it comes to future enlargements? We firmly believe that the merit-based process is something that needs to be preserved, meaning, in practice, that if Montenegro is ready to join, it should not wait for Bosnia, Kosovo, Moldova or, now, Ukraine to complete their processes. This would undermine the whole idea. With the model, we lead the showcase. We try to give true meaning to being a front-runner that is a country which deserves to progress.
In the European Policy Centre's view, what comes next? What should countries such as Ireland be doing? Our guests talked about the Irish Presidency coming up in a couple of years' time. What should be doing now to embrace the European Policy Centre's model, if that were to be the desire of countries?
Ms Ranka Miljenović
We were asked the same question yesterday at the Department of Foreign Affairs. We are grateful for the support Ireland provided in the context of enlargement, which is quite visible everywhere we go. I suggest that Ireland should definitely continue to advocate in favour of enlargement and for adopting the merit-based approach in the context of enlargement.
We would also like you to advocate to the European Commission to improve its country reports. The model will be applied on the basis of these. Although they are quite good and their qualitative marks can be transposed to a quantitative scale from 1 to 5, these reports still have to improve when it comes to transparency and accountability - for example, in cluster 1 fundamentals, which include the rule of law, judiciary, fundamental rights. Functioning of democratic institutions is not assessed by the European Commission. We believe that it is quite important to include assessment of this area as well. Although it is included in cluster 1, it is only briefly described without giving any qualitative mark to this area. We propose, for example, to use really good third-party indicators for this area.
In addition, we learned that the new roadmap on institutional reforms of the EU will come forward in or around June. We would strongly suggest and advocate that there should only be one mention of the involvement of the countries of the western Balkans in the EU institutions in this roadmap. That would be a really good way to progress it. We have a growth plan as to the implementation of the financial benefits of our model. Having institutional participation only mentioned in the roadmap could be a way forward and a good signal to the countries of the western Balkans
I thank Ms Miljenkovic. That is most helpful. We have been joined by Deputy Ó Murchú, who is one of the members of this committee who took part in the future of Europe debate. He may have a question. I said that my last question was my last, but I have one other question to pose while the Deputy is gathering his thoughts. Do the witnesses believe that either the European institutions or member states are helping applicant states sufficiently to achieve the targets necessary to allow them to achieve progress? Can we do more bilaterally?
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
The EU and its member states have been engaged with the regions since forever. However, we should not underestimate the enlargement fatigue that existed during the Juncker Commission.
I am talking about the technical capacity of countries. Have you discerned that there are deficiencies in the technical capacity that could be addressed that would help the process along?
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
Ms Miljenković can jump in on this, but I would like to touch upon, for example, the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, DG NEAR. The latter has been understaffed and often late in delivering. It sometimes does not have time to carry out impact assessments or engage in consultations with the member states and the CSOs. This was a big issue during the new growth plan. We believe that the next institutional cycle would have an enhanced enlargement DG with a stronger capacity to engage with members states and candidate countries, but also to have other DGs and other entities, such as ECOFIN, the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, DG AGRI, etc., joining and working together with assisting DG NEAR whenever that is needed and to assist our countries. If we open up the EU institutions to our candidates and make additional funds available, it would definitely require closer co-operation between the different administrations at political and expert level.
Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe. I have listened to a considerable amount of the discussion. I had to go into the Dáil to speak, so, unfortunately, I missed the witnesses' engagement with Deputy Howlin. He was talking about staging and whether there are any issues with it. In fairness, the witnesses have been comprehensive in terms of the material they provided. They have been sufficiently comprehensive in what they are talking about. Any engagement we have had with anybody on to the western Balkans has also been from the point of view of people being annoyed and fed up, but, probably, slightly happier that we are in a different scenario post the Ukrainian crisis and the invasion by Russia. However, there is a certain element of annoyance.
On the witnesses' idea of staging, we are all in support of accession. We all fear a two- or three-tier Europe. France has gone from a place where it would basically have no accession whatsoever until we get our house in order in respect of the rule of law, to talking about things I would be somewhat apprehensive about. I get what the witnesses are saying. It is the idea of needing to be able to provide these accession countries with a roadmap. They need to be able to get benefits at some point. There is a need to provide supports for those that want to get into the European Union and the European family in order that they can actually sell it. We are all aware that there are plays by China and, in particular, Russia. There are obviously some long-standing relationships that exist in that part of the world.
On the witnesses' engagement with the European institutions in the context of the staging situation they are talking about, I imagine - given the part of the world they are from - that there is a certain element of buy-in from the countries in the western Balkans. If we can get down to the issues that exist, I get it. Macron, France and everybody had this notion that there are rule-of-law issues in Europe and that we need to get our act together before we can consider anybody else coming in. That all changed, but there are particular rule-of-law issues. There is also the fact that nobody saw a roadmap into the European Union. That added to it. If we are talking about Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is obviously Republika Srpska. There is engagement not only from Russia but also Serbia. There is still the outstanding issue of Kosovo, and we have had numerous incidents, for want of a better term. Could the witnesses give any detail on that? They are obviously a good deal more au fait with the situation than the rest of us. How can we get to that better place? Could they also tell us more about the engagement with the European institutions?
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
I thank the Deputy. We agree that stronger engagement is definitely needed. As a think-tank, we do as much as we can but our capacity is limited. A handful of people developed this proposal. That is why we are counting on member states to assist us on this journey. Maybe it would have been natural for us to have started with the Commission. However, during the years before the war, the Commission was simply unresponsive. It was a black box. We could not do anything. It was business as usual. That is why we then started reaching out to member states. I mentioned at the beginning that we will have visited 20 of the 27 member states by the end of March, and we hope to cover them all. I would suggest, for example, discussing this matter with - besides Germany and France, who are well informed - Austria, Denmark and Finland, who are very enthusiastic about the proposal, and know all the details.
We got a little hope when the Commission appointed, as I mentioned previously, Gert Jan Koopman, the Dutch official who was previously with the Directorate-General for Budget, DG BUDG, if I am not mistaken. This was a positive sign, and there is a hope that maybe the next enlargement Commissioner would be somebody who would maybe have more leverage than Hungary. Maybe Orbán was just visionary in that he understood the importance of this position. However, Ireland could play an important role if it took on the position of enlargement Commissioner because it is a country that is well-respected, punches above its weight and does not have any immediate or open issues with any of those countries in question. It could balance the interests between the new candidate countries and the old ones.
There is a great deal of work ahead of us. For us, the game-changer was the European Council's conclusions from June 2022. That was the first time that the European Council endorsed the idea of gradual integration, subsequently inviting the High Representative and the Commission to provide their proposals. We would expect Ireland - maybe in meetings of COELA, the council's working group on enlargement - to at least stay informed and engage in open dialogue with its counterparts.
We hope to see members' colleagues there. We may participate in the COELA meeting in May in order to raise the urgency during this election year. The window of opportunity is there but it will close if we are too slow. History teaches us that the quickest ones to grab the opportunity are typically the most successful. I truly believe that with Ireland and other member states, we can make this work. Otherwise, we would not bother or invest as much energy as we are doing at the moment. I hope that clarifies our view of what we expect from the EU institutions and member states.
I thank the witnesses. Deputy Ó Murchú wishes to-----
That is the positive part.
I wish to end on a positive part.
My point relates to those issues. If we are talking about Republika Srpska or Kosovo, I know it is very difficult to detail the perfect roadmap, but how best can we get to a point that suits the accession of the western Balkans?
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
I will reply in two sentences. I know we are running out of time. History teaches us that two sides that are at odds with one another will be willing to negotiate and engage in finding an agreement if they know there is something attainable within sight. For example, the Brussels agreement of 2013 happened because Serbia knew it would open accession talks the following year, and that happened. Kosovo knew it that the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with it would be signed in 2015. At that time, the offer was credible. At present, the offer is not credible. That is why we left empty-handed, even after the Ohrid Agreement was signed, with the situation escalating in Kosovo, particularly in the north, where Serbs are feeling increasingly threatened and unsafe. That is why with the model, although we cannot provide a detailed roadmap on how it would resolve those bilateral issues, we can at least incentivise two leaders to realise it is based off working together rather than standing at odds with one another.
Is Mr Subotić particularly worried about Russian involvement at this point? It will probably be the same answer, in the sense that if you provide people with the roadmap, that weakens the hands of others.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
When it comes to Russia, I cannot expect Serbia, for example, to impose sanctions on Russia overnight. That would be counter-productive. It would be difficult to explain to people.
I am referring to the fact that Russia is playing games within the area.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
It is, but we can drive it out by showcasing that the enlargement is alive. If Montenegro can be used as a prime example that it works, Serbia could indirectly be moved in that direction as well. Of all things, Serbia would hate to erect a hard border between Serbia and Montenegro, thus splitting apart the communities that live there, for example. We hope that with the model we can integrate the regional competition. Serbia likes to see itself as a front-runner. We should not underestimate those feelings either.
I get that. I will finish on this. I should have explained that I was late to the meeting as I was at a conference at the Carrickdale Hotel, on the Border, close to where I live. It was attended by Conor Murphy, who is a Northern Minister, and the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, who was previously a member of this committee. The conference dealt with a sustainable all-Ireland economy. Ireland has many positives we can sell that relate to ensuring a border creates less hassle and we can deal with certain legacy issues. The border in question is one we would like to see disappear, and we hope it will, with the right actions being taken. There are certain positives. In fairness, we have had a positive interaction.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
It is positive. Brexit, for example, teaches us that we should not leave Euroscepticism unchecked. We saw the devastating consequences of Brexit. Maybe the upside is that Ireland is now even more respected and powerful than before and has stronger leverage. We should learn from that example.
There are also the dangers of disinformation and misinformation.
Mr. Strahinja Subotić
Very much so.
That is a good note on which to conclude. I thank our guests. I wish them well, as does the committee, in advocating what is a laudable idea. I hope it gains traction and acceptance across the Union. We will certainly raise it further with the Department of Foreign Affairs, as the witnesses have done. I hope they enjoy their stay in Ireland. I do not know whether it is their first visit here, but I hope it is most pleasant. I thank them for coming.
The joint committee adjourned at 11.15 a.m. until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 20 March 2024.