Enlargement Prospects for Southeastern Europe

Alumni from our two week course ‘Economic and Political Reporting from Southeast Europe’ in London went to Brussels for two days to meet with various officials are now writing about their experiences.

Session with Simon Mordue, Head of Cabinet, and Peter Stano, Spokesperson of Štefan Füle, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, European Commission

Participants in the program ‘Economic and Political Reporting from Southeast Europe’, had the chance to visit the European Commission in May during one of the most difficult economic crises the European Union has faced.

The foggy Monday-morning weather outside the building perfectly resembled the situation in the euro zone at the time, when a possible Greece exit from the single currency was making the front pages of newspapers all over Europe.

The first meeting scheduled was with Simon Mordue, Head of Cabinet of European Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Fule. He told the journalists from Southeastern Europe that the euro crisis would not determine the future integration process of states from the Western Balkans. 

He said that the EU was interested that the pace of reforms was kept up in the countries of that region. He stressed the importance of candidate states fulfilling the economic and political conditions, namely a stable democratic government that respects the rule of law, and its corresponding freedoms to strengthen their perspectives of integration into the European Union.