Photo: AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert
The European Union must change in order to be able to receive new members, writes the respected Swiss "Noe Zircher Zeitung".
The European Commission's report on Serbia's progress - peppered with well-known criticisms and not very complimentary to the authorities in Belgrade - in Europe remained in the deep shadow of the recommendation to start accession negotiations with Ukraine.
Negotiations with Moldova are also recommended, while candidate status is sought for Georgia.
Those familiar with the situation see this as a largely symbolic gesture: it is being made known to both Kyiv and Moscow that the EU will not leave a country that has been under the brunt of the Russian invasion for twenty months.
But what then? Will the EU really embark on a "geostrategic" enlargement in which standards, chapters and famous reforms will be ignored? Or will Ukraine also remain in the eternal waiting room like the countries of the Western Balkans?
That depends on whether the European Union will change itself, writes the respected "Noye Zircher Zeitung" (NZZ). According to the newspaper, Ukraine should become a member of the EU - but "a different EU".
EU "in multiple gears"?
"With the EU structured like this, Ukraine's accession is unrealistic even in the long term." That country cannot jump over the bureaucratic hurdles," writes Andreas Ernst, otherwise an excellent expert on the Balkans and previously a long-time correspondent from Belgrade, in a comment for the Swiss newspaper.
"The will in the country to politically be a part of Europe could be sought in a few years. Whoever wants to know how it goes should just study the examples of Serbia or Albania," says Ernst.
He reminds us of different ideas - from the "multi-speed" European Union, where, for example, inclusion in the European Economic Area would follow first, to the Portuguese idea of membership as a "buffet table", where everyone could decide in which areas they want to be sovereign. , and in which to follow EU policy.
"Ukraine, Moldova and the Balkan states need a different EU." They need an EU that can be approached step by step and a form of membership that takes into account their ability and willingness to integrate," writes Ernst.
Reforms on a long stick
Primarily, French President Emmanuel Macron is openly opposed to EU enlargement in its current form. According to him, even with 27 members, it is difficult to reach a consensus on various issues, and with more members it would be impossible.
Reforms in which decisions in the EU would be made by a qualified majority of votes, with larger countries having more weight, are still on the way. Berlin is also warm to this idea, but the question is whether and when countries like Hungary will agree to such a thing.
"Time is running out." The geopolitical environment of Europe is changing. The sooner the candidates can be reliably tied to the EU project, the better for stability on the continent," warns Ernst in an article for "Noe Zircher Zeitung".
NR/NZZ
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Educators from the Rebel University and PULS of primary and secondary schools welcomed Minister of Education Dejan Vuk Stanković on his first working day to show him what they think of him.
"The goal of this action is to support the workers and fight for their rights that were taken away from them at their workplaces," stated the students of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade.
Although some collectives have decided that classes in Belgrade high schools will start again from Tuesday, the students are not giving up on the blockades. The President of the Forum of Belgrade Grammar Schools, Ana Dmitrijević, says that teachers will enter the classrooms tomorrow - but most likely in empty ones.
RTS employees gathered in the "Our Protest" initiative demand the immediate publication of the names of the responsible editors who make decisions about the content of the program during the blockade of the building. They are also looking for an answer to the question - why is the majority of the editorial staff completely excluded from work?
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Anyone who condemns the regime's targeting of people from the media, the non-governmental sector, the opposition and universities, must not agree to this targeting of RTS editors and journalists either.
The government of Đur Mazut is "counter-revolutionary", focused on retaliation and state and street violence against opponents of the regime
Depriving Dejan Ilić, an intellectual with an impeccable life and work biography, of his freedom, without the slightest meaningful reason, is just one of the brutal indicators that the regime has turned against its own citizens and is entering a phase of terror
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