Balkans ‘EU’s Next Big Opportunity’

Europe
The Balkans are likely to present “the next big opportunity” for the European Union, and the region could become the bloc’s next economic motor, the prime minister has said.

Addressing the Conference of Speakers of Parliaments of the Visegrad Group and southeastern Europe, Viktor Orbán said the V4 and Balkan countries may end up building together the most significant economic area of the entire European continent, he said, adding that the path to the EU for the peoples of the Balkans led through central Europe. The countries of the Balkans should not be made into a buffer zone but should instead be integrated into the bloc, he added. “If the Balkan nations get an opportunity, just as the Visegrád countries did, they will pick up speed within a few years, strengthen their economies and real growth, and economic progress will come to the EU from the Balkans,” he said. The EU membership of Balkan countries is even more in the interest of the EU than the other way round, not only from the point of security but also in terms of Western economic interests, he said, adding that had the predecessors of current western leaders not taken the step for enlargement, the EU would be much weaker today.

 

hungarymatters.hu

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