Submitted by Political Commission 3
Adopted by the Federal Committee in Sofia on 30 March 2025.

 

With this resolution, JEF Europe wants to renew its commitment to the integration and accession of the Western Balkan countries to the EU, and to foster an ever closer partnership with those countries which believe that the EU is a common political project and a home for their citizens.

JEF Europe,

• Restating the importance of the enlargement process to the Western Balkans for the European Union and for the unification of the European continent, and welcoming the fact that they see for themselves a European future and are making efforts to progress towards accession;
• Recalling the EU’s historical responsibility to integrate the Western Balkans countries in the EU, taking into account the fact that the Union was created to foster peace across the European continent and how its attempt to bring peace to the Western Balkans during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990’s is remembered as the first major failure of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy;
• Reaffirming its strong opposition to unanimity voting for starting the accession process and during the process itself, which is too often used by Member States to appeal to their national interests first, and that has led to accessions being blocked due to individual political agendas of Member States;
• Recalling JEF Europe’s resolution ‘Regarding the Protection of Rule of Law’ and, therefore, recognising that the current framework cannot guarantee high standards of democracy and rule of law once a new member state joins the EU;
• Applauding the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans and the Reform and Growth Facility, which is bringing tangible progress in accelerating the speed of the enlargement process and the Western Balkan economies;
• Firmly believing that the European Union must implement a transparent, credible and democratic enlargement process, and confirm the accession of the countries of the Balkan region that meet the required standards among its political priorities;
• Underlining that delays in the EU accession process, often caused by cross-vetoes from member states for political reasons, lead to accession burnout, demotivating the population of candidate countries;
• Recognizing that no new EU accession dossier should disadvantage those already in progress, with all enjoying the same legitimacy;
• Concerned about the influence that foreign powers like Russia exert on governments in the region, as in the case of Serbia, with the aim of undermining support for EU accession—often pursued through strategies of destabilization and the exacerbation of internal societal fractures in these countries;
• Concerned that the newly established enlargement methodology further delays the accession negotiations, and that a member state could misuse it to slow down or block accession negotiation processes;
• Emphasising the importance of a strong civil society as a factor and driving force for sustainable democratic and rule of law oriented development in the Western Balkans;
• Welcoming the youth protests in Serbia, which demand greater transparency and accountability from institutions;
• Recalling the ‘Prespa Agreement’ signed in 2018 which concluded the end of the name disputes between North Macedonia and Greece;
• Welcoming the progress made in the bilateral relationship between North Macedonia and Bulgaria but deploring the current stalling that led to the decoupling of the enlargement process of Albania and North Macedonia while bilateral issues should be solved bilaterally in parallel;
• Condemning the enlargement methodology which, while stating the political basis of the process, does not indicate any role for the European Parliament, whereas the Member States are invited to contribute more systematically to the enlargement process, by correcting and monitoring the progress regularly;
• Strongly condemning the lack of credibility of the enlargement process, mainly due to the power of the Member States to stop negotiations at any time;
• Calling for a reduction of tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, urging improvements in the process of normalizing dialogue between the two states;
• Acknowledging the vague criteria in the international law for dealing with unilateral declarations of independence and the following process;
• Recalling the Yugoslavian atrocities towards Kosovo as failures in the responsibility to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity based on the UNGA commitment of 2005 for a “state’s responsibility to protect”, legitimizing the Kosovo Declaration of Independence as its inevitable and expected result;
• Underlining that after enduring ethnic cleansing and repression, the UN Security Council did transfer Kosovo away from Serbian control into international military supervision and the International Court of Justice judged in 2010 the Kosovo Declaration of Independence to be legal;
• Recalling the European Parliament’s resolution in 2010 calling all Member States to recognise the independence of Kosovo, noting with concern the ongoing standstill in the full recognition by all the member states;
• Expressing concern regarding the democratic backsliding, genocide denial, and escalation of nationalist rhetoric along with threats of ethnic violence taking place in Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, towards which Serbia’s government has been supportive;
• Noting with concern the creation of the European Political Community, yet another purely intergovernmental forum while other organisations like the Council of Europe have the same membership, that could be used by some Member States as an alternative to accession;

JEF Europe, therefore,

1. Calls on the Member States to be constructive in finding solutions to improve the enlargement process and not to use the process and the disagreements for the purpose of national popularity;

2. Believes that a federalist view should be applied in the Enlargement procedure with the European Commission in charge of the accession process, ensuring that high standards of democracy, rule of law, and respect for the principles on which the EU is founded are met, and providing that, as a last resort, the decision is made by the European Parliament through a qualified majority and by the European Council through unanimity;

3. Expects the European Parliament to be given a greater and decisive role in the enlargement mechanism, not only to improve its democratic and transparent nature, but also as the EU’s policy-making institution;

4. Encourages civil society and political organisations in candidate countries to multiply their efforts, especially in the fight against corruption, human trafficking, youth unemployment and to spread knowledge about the rights and duties that come with European Union membership among citizens and the importance of the European Union;

5. Encourages increased connectivity, in particular people-to-people contact, between EU member states and the Western Balkans; notably in the form of youth, educational and cultural exchanges;

6. Recommends that the Member States that until now have not formally recognized Kosovo proceed with the recognition;

7. Calls on the Council to swiftly move forward with the recognition of Kosovo as a candidate country;

8. Stresses the necessity of establishing more effective tools for the protection of the rule of law as per JEF Europe’s resolution ‘Regarding the Protection of Rule of Law’, and to extend these provisions to candidate countries where possible;

9. Calls on European political parties to reassess their national members in the region and hold them accountable for their role in fostering widespread corruption;

10. Encourages the EU and the Western Balkan countries not to proceed only through bilateral negotiations, but to approach the accession negotiations as a common process in order to facilitate exchanges of best practices, cooperation and mediation between all of them;

11. Supports the accession of Albania and Montenegro into the EU single market including priority areas such as goods and services, road transport, energy, cashless payments, after their memberships in the Single Euro Payments Area have been successfully established;

12. Proposes that Enlargement in the Western Balkans takes place in a multi-tiered fashion, defining two ‘packages’ (composed of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Serbia on the one hand; which should join together, and Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia on the other, which can join individually), while ensuring that the new Member States from the Western Balkans do not block the accession process of other Western Balkan states, making sure that inter-ethnic tensions do not meddle with the accession processes of any of the countries in the region, and to enshrine normalisation of relations as a tangible part of the process;

13. Requests the United Nation Security Council to adopt a new resolution, building on UNSC 1244, and to work alongside the Serbian and Kosovan authorities to establish a permanent settlement between both entities, aiming that a mutual understanding and agreement can lead to them both becoming fully recognized and sovereign Member States of the European Union and accepting that peaceful coexistence between nations should be the foundation of international relations;

14. Urges the European institutions (European Council, Parliament and Commission) to continuously reaffirm Enlargement in the Western Balkans as a priority policy for the European Union as much as enlargement to ‘trio countries’ for the sake of peace and stability;

15. Urges the European Union not to wait for these countries to be full members of the EU to assist them in their transition to cleaner sources of energy and in protecting their natural resources, both by providing additional funding, subject to strong conditionality, and know-how for the protection of future Natura 2000 sites, and to further involve them in its European Green deal, Just Transition Mechanism and Biodiversity Strategy initiatives;

16. Commits to work to strengthen its network of sections in the Western Balkan region.