site.btaEU Candidate Countries Take Part in Informal EU General Affairs Council Meeting

Twenty years after the great enlargement of the European Union (EU), the current candidate member states - the six countries of the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Turkey - met in Brussels. The meeting, organized by the Belgian EU presidency, was also attended by Bulgaria's permanent representative to the EU, Ambassador Rumen Alexandrov, the Foreign Ministry said. 

In this extended format, they discussed the rule of law in the candidate countries and agreed on its key importance for the accession process.

Rumen Alexandrov stressed the importance for Bulgaria of protecting the rights of persons belonging to minorities and communities and preventing hate crimes and hate speech in the candidate countries.

EU ministers discussed the rule of law mechanisms in the EU and how they can remain effective in the future enlargement of the Union. Bulgaria gave a positive assessment of the existing instruments in the EU. It supported the closer association of candidate countries to European agencies and networks in the field of the rule of law. The European Commission  will release its next Annual Report on the Rule of Law in the EU on 3 July, together with an assessment of the situation in Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro. 

The ministers reviewed the work done so far on the preparation of a roadmap for internal reforms in the EU, which the leaders will approve in June 2024. Consensus is a guarantee for the legitimacy of decisions and the commitment of member states to them," Ambassador Alexandrov said.

On April 24, European Parliament President Roberta Mezzola announced that 20 years ago a divided continent had reunited. She was speaking at a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the largest enlargement of the European Union in history.

On 1 May 2004, the EU admitted 10 new member states - mostly former communist countries from Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta. Enlargement continued in 2007 with Bulgaria and Romania also becoming part of the Union, followed in 2013 by Croatia, the 28th member state. In 2020, the UK left the EU, bringing the number of countries back to 27.

Mezzola stressed that a divided continent had reunited - from north to south and west to east, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. She recalled that after the 2004 enlargement, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia had also become part of the EU and now the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova were waiting their turn.