Ekaterina Zaharieva: Goodneighbourly Relations Serve as Guarantee of Security in Western Balkans Region
09 November 2020 News
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva confirmed Bulgaria’s support for the European integration of the Western Balkans and urged the Republic of North Macedonia to pursue goodneighbourly relations, to fulfill the bilateral agreements, and to settle the open issues with Bulgaria.
„Bulgaria has been and will remain one of the countries that have supported the countries of the Western Balkans, including the Republic of North Macedonia, on their European path. They too have to shoulder their responsibilities. Acting in a spirit of goodwill our two countries should make progress on the open issues, so that, 30 years from now, other ministers and other prime ministers would not have to go through what we are going through now.“
This is what Minister Zaharieva said at the end of today’s video conference of the foreign ministers of the Berlin Process for the Western Balkans, which she hosted together with Bujar Osmani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of North Macedonia. For the first time ever, the Process was hosted by two countries this year - Bulgaria, a member of the EU, and the Republic of North Macedonia, a country of the Western Balkans.
„We took over responsibly the joint hosting of the Process with the firm conviction that this is a token of recognition for the regional character of the initiative as well as a step toward fulfilling the goals of the 2018 Sofia Meeting EU- Western Balkans on accelerating regional economic cooperation and connectivity in all of its aspects,“ Ekaterina Zaharieva said.
She highlighted the role of goodneighbourly relations and the strict implementation of all bilateral commitments for guaranteeing the stability of the Western Balkans region.
„goodneighbourly relations are a horizontal criterion. The goal is not to have any open issues between member states when we sit at the table,“ Ekaterina Zaharieva said, adding that candidate countries should not carry unresolved problems into the EU. The Foreign Minister went on o add that the 2017 Treaty Agreement on Good-neighbourliness, Friendship, and Cooperation provides all guarantees that the open issues will be resolved if it is implemented in good faith without any attempts to bypass its provisions.
„Now, when the world is in an unprecedented crisis because of the coronavirus, we need good-neighbourliness and solidarity more than at any other time in the past,“ the Bulgarian Foreign Minister said. She went on to point out Bulgaria as a good example of a country that has reviewed its official development assistance in order to help third countries, including partners from the Western Balkans, in the fight against the coronavirus, and has provided humanitarian aid. The EU also confirmed its commitment to the region by including the Western Balkans in the European Economic Recovery Plan and mobilized more than 3.3 billion euros to help the six countries in the region to recover and to fight the coronavirus.
The Berlin Process was conceived by Germany to assist the European integration of the countries of the Western Balkans by means of economic development and better connectivity.
„The facilitated movement of goods, services, capital, and people would keep our economies alive and our industries competitive, particularly in times of crisis like these. Regrettably, it still takes us longer to travel from Sofia to Skopje than from Sofia to London. The same is true about Tirana and Podgorica,“ the Bulgarian Foreign Minister said.
At today’s talks, the participants put an emphasis on the connectivity of young people and on the role of civic society. As minister Zaharieva observed, it is the young people who will build the region’s common European future. The better connectivity between the economies and the businesses and the creation of a common regional market were discussed at the video conference together with the improvement of regional cooperation in the areas of the environment and infrastructure.
Ekaterina Zaharieva and Bujar Osmani thanked German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who also took part in the video conference, for the initiation of the Berlin Process and for Germany’s activeness and support for the European integration of the Western Balkans.
The meeting of the foreign ministers, as an established format within the framework of the Berlin Process, preceded and prepared the Process’s summit meeting on November 10, 2020. Apart from the two hosts of the Process and Germany, today’s video conference was attended by the Foreign Ministers of the countries of the Western Balkans and the Foreign Ministers of Austria, Poland, Greece, and Croatia, by senior representatives of France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, and European Commissioners Oliver Verhelyi and Mariya Gabriel as well as the general secretaries of the Sarajevo-based Regional Cooperation Council, Majlinda Bregu, and the Regional Youth Cooperation Office in Tirana, Gjuro Blanusha.