The European Parliament (EP) and the Council of the European Union, which represent the bloc’s 27 member countries, have reached agreement on Thursday on the text of the decision on the EU plan for economic growth in the Western Balkans, European officials confirmed.
The negotiators of the European Parliament, Tonino Picula and Karlo Resler, said that this agreement provides 6 billion euros for serious economic and structural reforms, through which the countries of the Western Balkans can make greater progress in the European integration process.
Of the 6 billion euros, 2 billion will be given as non-returnable grants, while 4 billion in the form of favorable loans.
The negotiations between these two EU institutions took place under great time pressure.
Now, the European Parliament must also vote for the formal approval of this plan. This is expected to happen in the last plenary session before the European Parliament is dissolved on the eve of new elections that take place in June.
Due to the European Parliament elections in June, the last plenary sessions will be held from 21 to 24 April.If the plan fails to be voted by then, it will remain in the hands of the new composition of the European Parliament, i.e. towards the end of this year.According to the agreement, in order to benefit from this package of financial assistance, the countries of the region must fulfill a series of not so easy criteria.Among them are the basic criteria which apply equally to all member countries.
They relate to the rule of law, respect for the principles of democracy, institutional reforms and taking the necessary steps to ensure that the funds will not be misused.Besides the criteria related to reforms and the rule of law, there are also criteria of a political nature.
For Kosovo and Serbia, another prerequisite will be constructive engagement in the normalization of relations between them in order to fully implement the respective obligations arising from the Agreement on the path to the normalization of relations and the Annex for implementation, which were reached in 2023 under the mediation of the EU -‘s.
Meanwhile, the disagreement about the conditionality or not of these means has been overcome with adaptation to the EU’s foreign and security policy. The position of the European Commission and a larger number of member states has dominated that this should not be a specific precondition.