US calls on EU to be clear on Western Balkans membership
By Honor Mahony and Ekrem Krasniqi
Europe should be clear on offering membership to the Western Balkans, a senior US politician has said.
"We Americans would say that Europe should say quite clearly that the future of those countries would be as members of EU and that we at NATO should also send that same strong signal", said Nicholas Burns the US under-secretary for political affairs, according to news agency DTT-NET.COM.
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"Our business in Europe isn't finished because the Balkans remains an island in the heart of Europe that is not connected to the great trans-atlantic institutions: EU and NATO", he said at an event by the Washington-based Center for Strategic
and International Studies last week.
This is not the first time that the US has commented on future EU members. It has always been a strong supporter of Turkey's bid to join the bloc, causing some friction in 2002 when it pushed the EU to press forward on talks with Turkey.
Mr Burns, who was formerly US ambassador to NATO, went on to point out that the "great strategic objective of every American administration, going all the way back to the beginning of the cold war was that Europe should be free and in peace and we are nearly of achieving that great strategic objective."
"But the Balkans remains the unfinished business."
His comments come as member states are wavering about their future committment to further enlargement of the 25-nation EU.
Member states formally agreed in 2003 that the Western Balkans should have a European perspective.
Romano Prodi, European Commission president at the time, said "the process of European unification will not be completed unless the countries of the Western Balkans become members of the European Union".
But enthusiasm for the Western Balkans project has recently dipped.
A foreign ministers meeting in Salzburg last month saw EU states like France trying to keep out wording on "EU membership" as a final goal for the western Balkans, while German politicians have mooted a "privileged partnership" for the region instead.
EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn has embarked on a series of tours and speeches to remind government of the importance of the EU sticking to its commitments, warning against "going wobbly" on the objective of Balkan states accession.