EU enlargement in Balkans "strategically important"

EU enlargement in Balkans "strategically important"

BRUSSELS -- Three current and future EU presiding countries say they will "work on the further progress of negotiations on the membership of the Western Balkan countries."

Italy, Latvia, and Luxembourg will hold the presidency of the EU over the next year and a half, and in a joint program, they stressed that "the policy of enlargement is of strategic importance, as the fundamental means of improving peace, democracy and security in Europe."

The program and the strategic guidelines framework for the EU's activities until the end of 2015, reiterates that after the start of the membership negotiations with Serbia in January 2014, and on the basis of the outcome of the screening, the negotiations will continue in accordance with the new approach, so that their true progress is secured, the Beta news agency reported.

The agency said it had seen the program, which sets the condition for Serbia "to be capable of honoring the requirements laid out in the negotiating framework and for it to satisfy the negotiations' criteria."

It was also reiterated that special attention will be dedicated to the European prospects of the Western Balkans, and that each candidate country will be graded according to their accomplishments in carrying out the necessary economic and political reforms.

According to the documents, the Council of Ministers of the EU will continue to support the EU perspective of Bosnia-Herzegovina with the goal of arriving to the status of candidate for membership, "respecting the principle of equal and strict conditions."

It added that "membership negotiations could be launched with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia based on the...