site.btaBerlin Process to Speed Up Western Balkans' European Integration

London, July 10 (BTA) - Addressing a conference in London on July 9, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva said the Berlin Process will undoubtedly speed up the European integration of the Western Balkans. "The initiative complements the European perspective of the six countries rather than replacing it," Zaharieva said, as quoted by her ministry.

The conference preceded the 2018 Western Balkans Summit in London, which is due on July 10. It will be the fifth annual summit within the Berlin Process, an initiative for European integration of the Western Balkan countries. The July 9 conference was attended by the foreign ministers of six Western Balkan countries and their counterparts from Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Slovenia.

Zaharieva noted that the European perspective has been the main incentive driving all positive developments in the Western Balkans over the last year. "A lot has been achieved in the meantime," she said, listing the Good-Neighbourliness Treaty between Bulgaria and Macedonia, the Macedonia name deal between Athens and Skopje, the connectivity strategy for the Western Balkan countries, the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Sofia, which was followed by a decision to start negotiations with Albania and Macedonia, as well as a number of innovative solutions in the framework of the South-East European Cooperation Process. "The consensus among the 28 member states about the latest decision in the General Affairs Council was a success in itself," Zaharieva said.

She stressed the key importance of the matters to be discussed by the London meeting: security, migration, bilateral relations and reconciliation. "The last of these is a compulsory condition for the countries in the region at the beginning of their European integration," she said. "The EU enlargement process is impossible unless the outstanding bilateral issues between the countries in the region are solved."

The Berlin Process and conferences like this one, which also involved representatives of civil society, youth organizations and start-up companies, help keep the focus on the Western Balkans after the Bulgarian, Austrian and Romanian presidencies of the EU Council, Zaharieva said.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Valentin Radev attended an interior ministers' meeting in London on the eve of the 2018 Western Balkans Summit, his ministry reported. The meeting discussed security challenges and the fight against terrorism and organized crime. It also looked at information sharing and police cooperation, arms smuggling and human trafficking, among other topics.

Radev presented the work done by his ministry in implementing the priority of the Bulgarian EU Presidency concerning the European perspective of the Western Balkans and good practices in regional security cooperation.

The Bulgarian Interior Minister also had a meeting with British Home Secretary Sajid Javid.