The European Commission’s “Enlargement Package” and the associated Progress play a vital role in the ongoing accession aspirations of the candidate countries, particularly for the six countries in the Western Balkans region. However, the 2016 Progress Reports raise several causes for concern from an enlargement perspective. Structural problems persist across the region that need addressing if the EU enlargement agenda is to be truly revived. The latest contribution to the EASTERN MONITOR series by Christian Kvorning Lassen assesses the structural shortcomings and obstacles to necessary deep reforms across the region, and how they might be addressed in order to both reignite the enlargement process and to consolidate the gains they already made. The full paper is available here.
Source: Europeum