Еврокомиссар Кос: «Страны-кандидаты в члены ЕС перед вступлением должны выбрать сторону»
Страны-кандидаты, ожидающие вступления в ЕС, должны сделать геополитический выбор и согласовать с блоком фундаментальные вопросы до вступления в него, заявила в интервью Euronews комиссар Марта Кос, отвечающая за расширение ЕС.
ЧИТАТЬ ДАЛЕЕ : http://ru.euronews.com/2025/11/10/evrokomissar-kos-strany-kandidaty-v-chleny-es-pered-vstupleniem-dolzhny-vybrat-storonu
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04:59And I want to unpack what you said, because I wanted to talk about Serbia after, but now that you brought it up, what does that mean?
05:06You say there is backsliding, and it's happened in many critical areas, going from civil rights to freedom of expression in the media.
05:14You also say, I want to see a democratic Serbia.
05:17If I'm the president of Serbia and I'm hearing this, I would go, well, it's going to be very rough.
05:21That means this is not going to move.
05:23I stay behind every word which is in the report.
05:28Why especially?
05:31Many, many areas.
05:33One of them is never before have been so many journalists jailed in Serbia as in the last year.
05:40The judiciary system is very much under the influence of the president.
05:47Nothing is happening in the enlargement process without the president.
05:52It is not right.
05:54And I could go on.
05:55CFSP alignment.
05:56So, you know, we expect from our candidates that they align in the trend their foreign and security policy with the European one.
06:07Serbia is really on the last place.
06:09So, we have four members or four countries, candidates from the Western Balkans, having 100% fulfillment of the CFSP alignment.
06:20Ukraine is 99.
06:22Moldova is 98.
06:23Serbia is 61.
06:25One point.
06:26The other point is, I can understand that President Vucic is going also to Moscow and to China.
06:35But we notice this.
06:37I can understand.
06:38I come from this area.
06:39I know about the relations between Serbia and Russia.
06:43On the other hand, you know, being supportive to a regime, Russian regime, which is killing people in Ukraine,
06:54not accepting the sanctions which the EU is having against Russia.
07:00There are things which we really cannot tolerate anymore.
07:05And what I think is also not good, and it is mentioned in the report, is that especially the Serbian politicians and media,
07:15which are then following his lead, should really stop accusing us, the European Union, that we are behind the protests in Serbia.
07:24Really, we are not.
07:26So, this is clearly a lie.
07:28And there are many, many lies I could go on.
07:30And this would stop immediately.
07:32Just to play devil advocate for a second, and then we can move on.
07:35What the Serbian authorities would say is that we don't apply your sanctions because we're not a member of the EU.
07:41If we join, we would be aligned.
07:42They also say, you know, we'll go to Russia, but we also have a relationship with Ukraine.
07:47But what I understand is that you're saying, I hear those arguments, but if you want to join, then you need to make choices.
07:53You want to see choices.
07:54Yes, and it is a very important geopolitical choice.
07:58You know, we all have to make geopolitical choices.
08:01There are also some member states, for instance, who are suffering or will have problems when we say that we want to get out of the energy dependence on Russia.
08:13We have done this quite a lot, you know, when the war started in Ukraine.
08:17Sixty percent of the gas in Europe was imported from Russia.
08:21Now we are down to five percent.
08:26Of course, you know, we have to buy also energy, which is more expensive.
08:30But why do we do this?
08:31Because we punish the system who has started this unfair war and supporting Ukraine.
08:40But not everything is negative in Serbia.
08:42I don't want to give this impression.
08:44There have been small steps like media legislation has been adopted.
08:49Now they are in the finishing line of the very important council on the electronic media or voting register.
09:00So there are some things.
09:02And this is right.
09:03So and we are supportive.
09:05But much, much more needs to be done.
09:06And you made that clear.
09:08Now let's move on, perhaps, to Ukraine, because it's the other big country.
09:10Obviously, no country has applied for EU membership in these conditions.
09:13This is a country that says it can reform deeply, but also fight a war at the same time.
09:18In your report, you say that they are committed and you see that they are committed.
09:22You also say, and this to me really, it's very important.
09:25You said the technicalities to open up the clusters.
09:28They are ready.
09:29And it should happen in November.
09:30That's a very bold statement to make.
09:32But you know the issue is a Hungarian veto.
09:35So this needs a political short circuit.
09:38Who's going to do it?
09:39You know, I'm a bold person.
09:41And we should deliver.
09:43We are, or me and my team, we are pushing the candidates they have to deliver.
09:48But we should deliver too.
09:50And we say it is merit-based.
09:52It goes both sides, meaning if, and it is not about Ukraine.
09:56I'm full of admiration what they are delivering, you know, while the bombs are falling on the country.
10:03And the same for Moldova.
10:04But they have delivered.
10:06So we have, we will be by November ready to open all the clusters.
10:11And then one of the member states is opposing.
10:16It's Hungary and they have said we're not going to change.
10:18Yeah, but you know, this, the same country, the same member states has given a green light to give a candidate status to Ukraine.
10:26Has given a green light to start negotiations.
10:30But now it is blocking.
10:32This is not fair and this is not how I see the European solidarity and geopolitical need.
10:39But of course, I'm sure we will find the solution.
10:43You know, not Ukraine, not Moldova.
10:46They don't need Orban to do the reforms.
10:49They can do the reforms on the way.
10:53So perhaps we see it more to black and white.
10:58We can only go on if we open the cluster or clusters.
11:02No, we can go on also without opening formally the clusters.
11:08We can do the technical work I'm speaking about in the working groups.
11:11And when the conditions will be met, then we can open and close clusters.
11:16I'm happy you say that because when you look at unanimity, you obviously say we need to find a way around this because otherwise the process won't end.
11:23The other big pillar of internal reform of the EU is the countries that join, the member states would argue, they need to be aligned with us.
11:33We need to make sure that the new members are not going to make life more difficult.
11:36So how is the EU at 27 going to be managed in a better, more efficient way, when we see a 27 is complicated, at 21?
11:45Would you say, for example, if a new country joins, they need to be put to the test and they need to be put on probation?
11:50There are two important points.
11:52First is that the candidate countries really have to be ready.
11:57They really have to go through the whole process of being ready, also applying all the so-called Copenhagen criteria, having strong economy, institutions and so on.
12:09On the other side, we also have to be ready.
12:12And this is the parallel process.
12:13So the Commission will, in the next weeks, put out the results of the so-called pre-enlargement review, where we have to see inside us what we have to do, that we will be ready to function, also when we will get some new members on board.
12:32You know, my country, Slovenia, joined the EU in 2004.
12:36Ten countries joined.
12:38It was 90 million people.
12:41And we survived.
12:42Now we are speaking about Albania, 2.78 million, and we are speaking about Montenegro.
12:50It is a kind of 600,000 people.
12:52It's like Antwerp.
12:53So should really this, a bit more than 3 million new citizens, be such a big problem?
13:00Of course not.
13:01But I can understand the concerns of the member states, of the citizens, and that we have to talk about it.
13:08So what I expect now, and I hope that we will do this together, all the stakeholders, to discuss about the future of the European Union.
13:19And it could also be that we speak about the decision-making process.
13:24Do you like the idea of Class A and Class B members?
13:27No, I'm strictly against, but this is my personal opinion.
13:30No, we cannot have two class members.
13:33You know, when Slovenia joined the EU, we have been equal, like Germany, you know, we were so happy at that time, and France, and so on.
13:40So I'm exaggerating a bit, but no, we have to enable that all the members will be equal.
13:46But already it exists, you know, through the accession treaties, we can define transitional periods.
13:53For instance, Poland has gotten, now, you know, people speak about the danger of the agriculture from Ukraine.
14:01You know, when Poland joined, it was the same issue with their agriculture.
14:06So Poland has gotten 20 years of the transitional period.
14:10And just as we reach to the end, there are two points that I would like to clarify.
14:13One is, you said, everywhere that we put out in their report, we stand by it, and we think this is a good report.
14:19Obviously, with Ukraine, you say they have made a lot of progress, but you also point out, too, the idea of rule of law and corruption needs to be tackled further.
14:27As you can see, the government, President Zelensky, he spoke with us, he said, I haven't fully seen it, but I'm not sure I fully agree with that description.
14:34What did you mean by that?
14:36The interpreters are very negative.
14:37Is it that negative?
14:39No, not at all.
14:40But, you know, the report for Ukraine and any other country is more than 100 pages.
14:45And some people have read just a few lines.
14:48And it is really good to see the whole report.
14:51And for Ukraine, it is clearly a huge development, a huge progress.
14:58But there are some points, and this is nearly for every candidate country.
15:01Just to remind you, why are we doing this enlargement reports?
15:06It is, we do this to point out what is running well and to see where we need some improvements.
15:14And one of the areas where we see the danger in Ukraine is, and we have experienced this on July 22nd, where actually law has been adopted, which was making their two main anti-corruption agency less independent.
15:35And this is not good.
15:36You know, it is very, very important that the country, not just Ukraine, is having independent anti-corruption institutions.
15:44And this was a clear backsliding.
15:46And this shouldn't be the case.
15:49The law has been repaired, not yet to 100%, so we are still working on this.
15:55And this is why we have put this into the report.
15:58And in all of this, you still say the European Union is going to be stronger with them inside?
16:04Yes, once they will join, but they will not be able to join unless they will be prepared.
16:08So this is a circle we have to follow.
16:10Just very quickly, Georgia, the language that you have used is, at least to my knowledge, the most severe I have ever seen in a report like this.
16:19If I understand what you say, where you talk about massive and very serious backsliding on everything.
16:24You talk about authorities that no longer seem to be interested in this process.
16:28If I read that, the way that I would interpret it is, this is the end of the road.
16:33But at the same time, there is a people, and we all know this, who are prepared to do almost anything to now join the European Union.
16:41How do you bridge this gap?
16:42You are right.
16:43This is the worst enlargement report for any candidate country ever.
16:49But rightly so.
16:50So what their government is doing and lying to their people, they are saying that they are bringing Georgia closer to the EU.
16:58They are bringing Georgia away from the EU.
17:02So it is a clear backsliding on many, many areas, especially on the fundamentals, the rule of law, anti-corruption, media freedom.
17:13You know, the government, what is the government doing?
17:17The government is not following the interests of their own people.
17:23Because they say they want in very clearly.
17:26Is there a way to bridge this gap?
17:29You know, that's why the only option is that the government of Georgia will revise many, many laws who are clearly anti-European.
17:42They should stop putting their political opponents or journalists in jail.
17:47They really should start not oppressing any more the organizations of civil society.
17:54You know, we have difficulties to support them because as long as they are here, we would love to support them.
18:04They are in the danger that they will be put in jail.
18:06So, yes, it is clearly Georgia still a candidate country, but for the commission only on the paper.
18:14And we will do everything to support media and especially civil society organizations.
18:20And just lastly, by 2030, the end of this mandate, what does the European Union look like?
18:24Is it 29? Is it 30? Who's in it?
18:27Oh, I don't know. I can't see in the stars.
18:30But I will work endlessly and tirelessly on this project in which I really believe.
18:39For the first time after many years, the prospects of the enlargement are there.
18:44How many countries it will be, it is not that much important.
18:48The important is that actually we will get stronger, as you have said,
18:54and that we will make our union of values and democracy bigger.
19:00And I will close with this, if I may.
19:04You know, in the past, the European Union has always been capable to include the countries which have been,
19:12for instance, Portugal, Spain, Greece.
19:16We included them into the EU after the end of the dictatorships.
19:21After the Berlin Wall fell, we have been able to include for the first time countries from the Eastern Europe.
19:27And now we are again in this historical moment.
19:33So I am positive there will be some new members.
19:36How many?
19:38Let's meet in 2030, no, 2029, because my mandate ended in 2029.
19:43So we have to meet before December the 1st, 29.
19:46Then we can talk about the numbers.
19:48We'll invite you again, Commissioner Kost.
19:50Thank you so much for this important conversation in Euronews.
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