My first, uh, question to you is, uh, what is the state of play? Where do we stand? Where do the Western Balkans currently stand in the EU accession process? Can you give us a quick overview?

Uh, yes.

I, I would start the overview by reminding our listeners that, uh, it was, uh, Croatia, Western Balkan countries, the last, uh, enlargement of the EU.

Croatia joined in twenty thirteen.

And in a sense, we are now continuing on, uh, by going south on with the enlargement to the same region.

The prospects of enlargement to other Western Balkan countries, uh, include, uh, um, a variety of countries that are not necessarily homogeneous: uh, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and there is also the, uh, there is also Kosovo, whose statehood is, of course, uh, contested.

So to give a quick overview of where we stand, I would say that, uh, Montenegro, uh, who has been a candidate country since twenty ten, is probably at the, uh, most, uh, advanced stage in the sense that, uh, the exiting country negotiates an international agreement with the EU or rather with its member states in an intergovernmental format, and this agreement is the accession treaty.

Uh, how could the accession treaty be used as an instrument to prevent future problems on, uh, respect of the rule of law in, uh, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia?