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00:00are all in different stages on their path towards membership in the bloc.
00:04Well, to talk more about this, I'm joined by Andy Hodgai,
00:08lecturer of EU law at King's College in London.
00:10Thank you very much for speaking to France24.
00:14Discussions around EU enlargement in the region stretch back 20 years,
00:18with Brussels blowing hot and cold during that period.
00:21How soon then could we realistically see one of these countries become a member of the EU?
00:26Well, there has been for quite a long time the promise that these Western Balkans will join
00:35the EU. Unfortunately, the political constraint both within the EU and the Western Balkans has
00:41been unable for us to see a clear window when these countries could join. At the moment,
00:47it seems like they are pushing for a 2030 deadline, but it's not quite sure whether
00:54this is quite realistic. What we can see, especially from her trip in the Western Balkans,
01:02she's trying to promote the 6 billion euro package, which is to transform these economies.
01:09But nevertheless, this money is contingent on the reform. So it will be interesting to see,
01:16and it will also depend primarily on how the EU is going to reform itself, because we can
01:22see that the European Union is in a discussion to reform internally in order to welcome
01:28some new members, at least in the forthcoming decade.
01:33Speaking of reforms, which of these countries, or if any, are actually carrying out what's
01:39needed to be done? What are we looking at concretely and what these countries need to show?
01:46Well, when we sort of look at it from a political perspective, you see that a number of the Western
01:52Balkans country, when it comes to Ukraine, have aligned their foreign policy, except from Serbia.
02:01But then when you sort of scratch beneath that service, they still, a number of them,
02:06have massive problems when it comes to the independence of the judiciary. We can see
02:11Albania has done a massive judicial reform, and the conditionalities around it is that these
02:18countries show a track record in fighting organized crime and corruption at the highest level. And
02:24some of them are doing quite a lot of efforts in this regard. But nevertheless, it's quite
02:31difficult to see because the EU conditions in the way that they assess independence of the judiciary
02:37sometimes is contingent to what is the track record in terms of convicting high level officials
02:44against corruption. And a number of them, particularly Albania, but we can also see
02:50in Montenegro, North Macedonia, have done well. But then we never quite know, because for a second,
02:56North Macedonia was quite ahead, but then they have a new government, and now they seem to have
03:02another dispute with one of their neighbours. So it's very difficult to assess, especially
03:10when there's not clarity over when the next enlargement might take place.
03:15And what about diplomacy? I mean, I'm thinking in particular of Serbia, which has maintained
03:20friendly ties with Russia, and has refused to sanction Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine.
03:27How is the EU going to handle these kinds of things?
03:30Well, the thing is, when you look at it from a political perspective, the EU is making
03:35quite a big point that all of these countries have to align with the EU in foreign policy,
03:40and in particular in Serbia. But then what we see, we also see that at times they do these
03:45background deals. So in particular, over the summer, we saw the EU, particularly with Germany,
03:50they did a deal on lithium with Serbia, and all of a sudden, this was sort of forgotten.
03:57But we have to also be clear, a number of these countries at the moment,
04:01have viewed that the EU is unlikely to expand. And what they are sort of trying to do is to
04:07have a close economic tie as possible with the EU, but without the contingency to truly reform
04:14their democracies and their judicial system, as well as their foreign policy. So that will be a
04:21very difficult thing to act, but we would need a more strong hand from a number of EU member states
04:29to actually show that there is a plan for the Western Balkans to join and put pressure on these
04:34countries to deliver in some of these conditions and make a clear question whether it's the EU or
04:42whether it would be Russia or China. Right, and what implications would
04:48these countries' integration into the EU have for immigration?
04:53So that's a really interesting question. And one of the visits that Vondelay is doing in the
05:00Western Balkans is actually to talk also about migration. Because last week, a number of,
05:06it was about 17 European countries have put forward a non-paper to address migration in
05:13the European Union, and they see the Western Balkans as key to playing a role in managing
05:19migration flow. Because we saw in 2015 when the largest wave of migration was, they passed through
05:26the Western Balkans route. Now the EU has put pressure now, especially through also the EU
05:32conditionalities to help the European Union on managing migration. We saw Italy doing a deal
05:39with Albania. We've seen France, there is a discussion to look at a similar deal. But we
05:44saw the French Prime Minister saying that the deal will not work quite legally. But if we are talking
05:50about whether this country will join the EU and then we'll have another wave of migration from
05:55these countries, I think when we look at the number, it's highly unlikely because by 2030,
06:01already half of the Western Balkan nations are living in the European Union. And at the moment,
06:06in average, it's about 42%. All right, we'll have to leave it there. But thank you very much
06:12for your analysis, Andy Hodgai, who's a lecturer of EU law at King's College.