Berlin conference is important for EU enlargement in Balkans

VIENNA - Austria's Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurtz has said that Vienna sees this year's conference on the Western Balkans, held in Berlin, as the cornerstone of the EU's enlargement in the region.

The European peace project and the EU itself will not be complete without the Western Balkans, he stated.

The Western Balkans remains in focus of Austria's foreign policy, he told Tanjug, thanking German Chancellor Angela Merkel for suggesting Berlin as the host city.

Kurtz will attend the conference in Berlin together with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann and Minister of Economy Reinhold Mitterlehner.

Experience from the 1990s shows that neglecting the Western Balkans will have nagative consequences sooner of later, Kurtz said, adding that the economic and social situation in the region had to improve, that EU integration would help the most in that and that it was the main topic of the conference, together with future directions.

Austria will host the conference next year and intends to continue the integration of the Western Balkans into the EU and provide new momentum for the process, he noted.

Austria hopes that significant progress in the accession talks between the EU and Serbia will be achieved by then, so a roadmap for the future could be created in Vienna, says Kurtz, pointing out that Austria intends also to help strengthen further the civil society in Bosnia-Herzegovina and that it wouls work hard on that until the conference in Vienna.

The conference in Berlin will be held on August 28 under Merkel's patronage.

The meeting will be attended by high-ranking officials from Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo, as well as European Commission...