Why Ursula von der Leyen needs the Balkans to believe in EU membership

Good morning. Positive news from Gaza, where injured Palestinians and EU passport holders were some of the hundreds of people permitted to leave the besieged enclave yesterday into Egypt, the first exits since the Israel-Hamas war began 26 days ago.

Today, I explain why the president of the European Commission spent most of this week touring the Balkans, and our correspondent in Rome reports on Giorgia Meloni getting pranked — and saying the quiet bit out loud regarding Ukraine.

Balkan odyssey

It was armed with both carrots and sticks that Ursula von der Leyen toured the Balkans this week, to give encouragement to those governments working hardest to meet EU membership standards, and warn the laggards that Brussels’ newfound appetite for enlargement might not last forever.

Context: the six western Balkan states of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia are all aspirant 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.

Ukraine is a double-edged sword for Balkan aspirants. While the war undoubtedly has boosted their long-term EU membership chances, it has also swung the spotlight firmly on Kyiv’s bid, and left those previously assumed to be at the front of the queue (albeit with the club door firmly closed) feeling overlooked.

Giving them some love and reminding them that they too are part of Brussels’ conversations on a future EU was objective number one of von der Leyen’s trip. She’s cognisant that Ukraine will be the focus of next week’s commission report into aspirant members’ reform progress, and the five weeks leading up to the December EU leaders’ summit will be packed with speculation over whether Kyiv will be granted formal accession talks.

The Balkan region’s overall scorecard is messy. Montenegro, where von der Leyen was on Tuesday, is the star pupil. “For a long time the most advanced” on the path to membership, the commission president said herself.

Then there’s Bosnia, where she was yesterday, which appears to be going backwards owing to endemic corruption and ethnic and political fracturing.

“What we cannot accept is a backsliding on our common values or divisions in any part of your country,” von der Leyen warned, urging the country to make “resolute progress” in democratic reforms.

Kosovo (Monday) and Serbia (Tuesday) aren’t doing much better, given the regular violence that flares up on their border. Serbia doesn’t even recognise Kosovo as a country, though neither do five EU members.

Few in the western Balkans doubt that the EU offers the best economic deal for their countries’ future, underscored by von der Leyen’s references to a €6bn financial package for the region.

But the challenge for leaders weighing up the political cost of necessary reforms is the list of demands is long and none actually know how long it could take.

And that’s before we get to the question of whether the EU’s existing members are truly serious about enlargement, and their own reforms and the costs those would entail.

Chart du jour: Gasfield

Europe’s gas storages are almost full. Ukraine has a solution.

Hello, Giorgia?

Italy’s prime minister has been the victim of a prank phone call during which she has acknowledged “fatigue” for the war in Ukraine and complained that Italy had been left alone dealing with the migration crisis, writes Giuliana Ricozzi.

Context: Russian comedians Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, better known as Vovan and Lexus and suspected of links with the Kremlin which they have denied, yesterday released the tape of a 13-minute phone conversation with Meloni.

Her office confirmed the embarrassing incident and explained that an “imposter posing as the president of the Commission of the African Union” managed to mislead the office of the diplomatic adviser and spoke to the prime minister. The conversation took place on September 18.

Discussing the war in Ukraine, Meloni, a staunch supporter of Kyiv, says that she sees “a lot of fatigue from all sides” and that the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at regaining the land occupied by Russian troops is not proceeding as expected. 

“We’re near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out”, she said. “The problem is to find a way out which can be acceptable for both without destroying international law.”

Shifting to migration, Meloni admitted that the situation had proven “very difficult to manage” and could worsen. She also lamented that international partners had abandoned Italy as it has been struggling with the arrival of more than 140,000 people by sea since the beginning of the year. 

“The others don’t care . . . they all agree that only Italy has to solve this problem alone,” she said, complaining that, ironically, leaders didn’t even return her phone calls.

What to watch today

1. German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock hosts a ministerial conference to discuss EU enlargement.

2. Finland prime minister Petteri Orpo hosts South Korean counterpart Han Duck-soo.

Now read these

• Winter war: How Ukraine’s power stations are once again braced for a renewed Russian bombing campaign to leave its people in the dark and cold.

• ‘Hitler wine’: Inside the police investigation into the newly elected far-right German politician Daniel Halemba, including his Nazi literature and weaponry.

• ‘Bibi’s finished’: The eroding support for Israeli prime minister Netanyahu after Hamas’s terror assault on Israel.