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BANJA LUKA, June 26 (FENA) - The decision of the European Union not to grant candidate status to any new country from the Western Balkans at the last summit did not give a positive signal to the region and further undermined the credibility of the accession process, it was said at the conference "EU and the Western Balkans - between mistrust and common interests" organized in Banja Luka by Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH).
Message from the EU-Western Balkans conference: Credibility needs to be restored to European integration, decisions from the last summit will have negative consequences for the region.
International experts, former diplomats, decision makers from BiH and the surrounding area spoke at the conference, as well as representatives of the academic community and civil society, and the common conclusion is that the region needs a stronger EU engagement, a new impetus for integration and support in key reforms such as the rule of law, TI BiH said.
The complete halt in the process of European integration in the region came due to the increasingly pronounced authoritarian tendencies of domestic leaders, accompanied by the violation of the rule of law, civil and media freedoms. The desire of the political elites in the countries of the Western Balkans is obviously to maintain the current situation, and the previous approach of the Brussels administration has many times led to rewarding those who violated the European path, the rule of law and fundamental civil liberties.
On the other hand, internal problems in the EU itself have led to a blockade of the European path even of those countries that have met difficult conditions. Therefore, the result is a decline in public support for the European integration process, which will certainly be an aggravating factor in the future.
In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, only one of the 14 key priorities met the technical condition of setting up a Parliamentary Committee on European Integration, while authorities blocked all key reforms to enable the rule of law and the fight against corruption.
Despite the fact that the vast majority of political actors are committed to European integration, everything that has happened in recent years clearly shows that the key goal of the ruling elites is to obstruct these reforms, preserve the levers of power and the current state of widespread corruption.
The participants in the conference also criticized the EU's approach so far, which has spent enormous funds on judicial reform and other reforms that have not yielded results because solutions that are not adapted to the situation in the region have been forced.
The conference also stressed the need to strengthen regional cooperation in order to build mutual trust and strengthen the civil society sector, which is a prerequisite for creating the preconditions that will enable a deep democratic transition. The tendency to violate media freedoms is present both in the countries waiting to join and in the EU member states from the region, which requires a special approach in resistance to authoritarian tendencies.
(FENA) A. B.
