This article is part of our special report Frontline and facing forward, the EESC’s next generation strategy.
The European Economic and Social Committee has taken a unique approach to enlargement, using a future-proofing strategy to engage with EU candidate countries through a pilot initiative to include them in policy development discussions.
It’s not quite a ‘try-before-you-buy’ solution but it does afford candidate countries access to how European structures work and are developed, lending itself to a gradual integration into the EU expansion.
“We are all talking about gradual involvement and gradual integration. We don’t see a lot of examples for this [in general] and so I’m proud that we are the first institution that gives a concrete example,” Oliver Röpke, EESC president told Euractiv.
The EESC is the first of the EU institutions to deploy this methodology as one of its political priorities as it opens its doors to members from the EU candidate countries, through a curated selection process.
Röpke says it was his flagship initiative, he said: “I’m proud that we received a lot of support from other institutions, from the Parliament, and the Commission but also from many member states, and that we are seen as advocates here in the house, and as advocates for civil society in candidate countries.”
Parliament office in Western Balkans
There has been substantial movement in the Western Balkans on enlargement, which will be supported by the European Parliament with a new office in the region, which will open to enhance its oversight of the enlargement process. As well as strengthening relations with candidate states, the new office will increase the visibility of EP officials.
Digital Europe Programme
In recent weeks, the European Commission opened the Digital Europe Programme to participants from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The programme supports projects innovating in the areas of supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and digital technologies for the economy and society, with a budget of €7.5 billion (overall) in the 2021-2027 period.
Opening the call to include participants from Bosnia and Herzegovina will bring the EU candidate country closer to the EU economy and society, benefit their technology capabilities and support digitalisation overall, in particular that of small and medium-sized businesses.
Its association with the Digital Europe Programme is poised to make meaningful contributions to the shared goals, values, and strong links between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union in the realm of digital technologies,’ states DG Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR).
ECM hot tickets
The call for participation in the initiative was opened at the turn of the year and key representatives from civil society in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine were invited to submit their applications to become the first enlargement candidate members (ECMs), an honorary title, allowing them to become involved in ‘EU activities, facilitating their progressive and tangible integration into the EU’.
The EESC’s call for applications for potential ECMs rallied a huge response with a total of 567 applicants – 146 of those were added to the ECM pool with Albania on 18, Bosnia and Herzegovina on 15, Georgia on 15, Moldova on 15, Montenegro 14, North Macedonia 15, Serbia 15, Türkiye 16 and Ukraine with 23 ECMs.
“The ECMs will work with us on selected opinions, for example on the Future of Cohesion Policy – the future of the single market together with the future enlargement of the European Union – and the evaluation of the European Commission’s annual Rule of Law Report,” says Röpke.
“When we officially kicked off this initiative, in February, in our plenary, we had the Prime Ministers of Montenegro and Albania. Edi Rama from Albania not only highly praised our initiative he said this is an initiative that should be followed by other EU institutions like the Commission and the Parliament, so I’m quite proud of that – we will now do everything to make this a permanent success,” he explained.
ECMs are welcomed to the EESC to share opinions on ‘policies that matter to everyone, such as promoting social and civil dialogue, creating jobs and decent housing, boosting a competitive industry, or even the future of agriculture’.
Common Agricultural Policy
“The future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is of course of utmost importance for the current member states and candidate countries like Ukraine – and this is the reason we involved the Ukrainian enlargement candidate members on an opinion that deals with the question of how we can ensure the social, environmental and economic sustainability of the EU agri-food sector with future enlargement,” Röpke.
September will see the EESC plenary on enlargement but much work on the opinions of ECMs is being done between now and then.
“We don’t want to work only with fears, we want to work with facts and therefore they are involved in this opinion which will be developed in the next months,” Röpke explained.
[By Fiona Alston I Edited by Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab ]
