Annual summit

Political help from the Wachau for the Western Balkans

Gordan Grlic Radman, Foreign Minister of Croatia, with host Johanna Mikl-Leitner and Austria's Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg.(Bild: BMEIA/ Michael Gruber)

Geographically, the Western Balkans and the Wachau are separated by hundreds of kilometers. Politically, however, the Wachau European Forum in Göttweig Abbey, this year entitled "Rebooting Europe", brings them very close together again. What messages the assembled foreign ministers are sending to the Western Balkans, but also to Brussels.

Brexit in the West, the war in the East and the government crisis in their own country. As in previous years, the political situation at the Europe Forum in the Wachau is traditionally tense. As in the previous year, however, this year's forum will once again focus on the Western Balkans. The Göttweig Declaration signed the previous year celebrated its first anniversary, as did the co-founded group "Friends of the Western Balkans".

The "Göttweig Declaration"
Specifically, the declaration calls for the Western Balkans region to be more closely integrated into European policies and bodies in the sense of "gradual and accelerated integration" even before full accession. Especially in the context of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, it must be in the interest of the Union to engage in much closer exchange with its Western Balkan partners in foreign and security policy in order to decisively meet common challenges, it was said at the time - and it is said today.

The goals of the Group of Friends

1. to keep the Western Balkans at the top of the EU's agenda.
2. to ensure a realistic and credible accession perspective.
3. to achieve tangible progress for the people of the Western Balkans region.

Schallenberg invited 13 foreign ministers to the Wachau European Forum at Göttweig Abbey to mark the occasion. For the first time, EU members and candidate countries came together in the Wachau. And much has been achieved since the start of the initiative: For example, the granting of candidate status to Bosnia and Herzegovina, or the steadily increasing attention paid to the Austrian concept of gradual integration, which has shaped the EU enlargement debate since the last forum.

Schallenberg: "Finally keeping our promises"
"We promised the people of the Western Balkans EU membership 20 years ago. We should finally keep this promise. The Friends of the Western Balkans will continue to set the pace and be a strong advocate for the Western Balkans. Because the EU is not complete without the Western Balkans," says Schallenberg.

He adds: "Our aim is to involve the countries of the Western Balkans even more closely in EU foreign policy. The closer we coordinate, the stronger our voice in the world. This concerns trade, migration, but also the area of security." The host of the forum, Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner, echoed the same sentiment. The path of the Western Balkan states into the EU must be at the top of the new Commission's agenda, because "if the European Union fails to integrate the Western Balkans more and more closely, then others will do so." In general, the European Union needs to realign itself, and to do so it must "refocus on the strengths that made it great. Namely peace, freedom and prosperity.