ZAGREB, July 7, 2018 – Great Britain will host the EU-Western Balkans Summit in London on Monday and Tuesday, with less than a year until its exit from the European Union becomes a reality.
This fifth summit convened under the Berlin Process will bring together top officials of six Western Balkans countries, European institutions’ representatives, as well as top officials of nine EU member-states, including Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and Interior and Foreign Ministers Davor Božinović and Marija Pejčinović Burić.
The summit will be the fifth to take place under the Berlin Process after Berlin (2014), Vienna (2015), Paris (2016) and Trieste (2017). The Berlin Process is a diplomatic initiative that Chancellor Angela Merkel launched in 2014. “Each year it brings together the six Western Balkans countries, like-minded EU partners and representatives of the EU institutions to work together to support security, stability and prosperity in the region,” according to a press release issued by the British government on its web site. Prime Minister Theresa May will host the Western Balkans Summit in London, “demonstrating our longstanding commitment to the region and to European security.”
The Prime Minister has invited the heads of government of the six Western Balkans nations: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. The UK has also invited EU partners, including Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. Bulgaria has been invited in light of the EU28 Western Balkans Summit in Sofia in May 2018 and Poland has been invited as they will host the Western Balkans Summit in 2019.
On Monday, a ministerial meeting will be opened by British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, while a key-note speech will be delivered by the Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime Ben Wallace on security, terrorism and organised crime.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May will host a meeting of heads of state or government, including Croatia’s Plenković.
British diplomat Andrew Page, who is the coordinator of the EU-Western Balkan summit, has told Hina in a recent interview that, after its exit from the European Union, Great Britain will remain interested in stability and economic progress of the southeast of the continent and underscored that London would like to be a reliable partner of the “European project”.
The original focus of the Berlin Process has been on the economic stability and assisting Western Balkan countries to network their infrastructure: roads, railways and telecommunications, Page said. A special emphasis is put on regional economic integration and treating the whole region as “a single investment destination”, the British diplomat told Hina in his interview.
The British government underscores that the summit will focus on three important aims: increasing economic stability, strengthening regional security co-operation to help tackle common threats, and facilitating political co-operation.” The economic stability needs to be increased with a view to improving the business environment, encouraging entrepreneurship, addressing youth unemployment, and promoting regional inter-connectivity, the British government says. Regional security co-operation is to be strengthened “to help tackle common threats, including corruption, serious and organised crime, trafficking of people, drugs and firearms, terrorism and violent extremism.” Political cooperation is to be facilitated in order “to help the region resolve bilateral disputes and overcome legacy issues stemming from the conflicts of the 1990s and strengthen democracy and gender equality.”
