VDL’s Western Balkan tour: Promises and warnings on EU enlargement

This week the Beyond the Byline podcast looks at Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s tour of the Western Balkans.

The EU executive chief talked to leaders of Western Balkans countries to encourage their governments to continue their hard work to meet EU membership standards, while warning that many are falling short of the requirements, and Brussels’ newfound appetite for enlargement might not last forever.

The six Western Balkan states of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia are all aspiring EU members. Accession for any of them looked a distant prospect until Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last spring got Brussels talking seriously about enlarging the EU again.