TIRANA, June 7 – A two-day meeting of the Open Balkan initiative kicked off in Ohrid, North Macedonia on Tuesday with Montenegro participating in it for the first time as the countries of the region are dissatisfied with the slow pace of their EU accession process.
Kosovo insisted on its objection to the initiative being not represented in it at all. Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti sent a letter to his Macedonian counterpart Dimitar Kovacevski, stating that Kosovo is engaged in the Berlin Process, an initiative launched by Germany which is deadlocked because of the power change in Berlin. Former Chancellor Merkel was the initiator of the project and it is not clear what will happen with it after her.
Last week Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic confirmed his country’s participation in a gesture which has caused surprise because Podgorica rejected such an initiative.
It is not quite clear the stance of Bosnia and Herzegovina but there are reports it will be represented as an observer in the Ohrid meeting.
The initiative sees multiple agreements that facilitate the free movement of people and goods, as well as various trade initiatives throughout the participating countries. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sparked on Monday controversy when he appeared to give a nod to the Open Balkan initiative following regional countries refusing to allow his plane to cross their territory to take him to Serbia.
“NATO and EU want to turn the Balkans into a project of their own called ‘closed Balkans’,” Lavrov said Monday (6 June) evening, adding, “if a visit by a Russian foreign minister is being seen in the West as something close to a global threat, then by all accounts things within the West are pretty bad”.
Open Balkan is the successor of an initiative previously called Balkan mini-Schengen, introduced by the leaders of Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia in Novi Sad in early October 2019.
“The region’s leaders are torn between their support for the German-endorsed regional integration initiative known as the “Berlin Process” and the “Open Balkan” blueprint for easing borders launched by the leaders of Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia and which Montenegro has now hinted it may join,” said Shada Islam, an independent EU analyst and commentator who runs her own strategy and advisory company New Horizons Project. She is also the editor of the EUobserver magazine. /Argumentum.al
