German Foreign Minister Baerbock has said Berlin’s answer to US President-elect Trump’s “America First” agenda should be “Europe United,” instead of “Germany First.” pic.twitter.com/wZVCUPUmTq
— DW News (@dwnews) November 13, 2024
Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock has said the European Union must enlarge to avoid making everyone on the European continent more vulnerable.
“Putin’s Moscow will continue to try to divide not only Ukraine from us, but also Moldova, Georgia and the Western Balkans,” Baerbock said in a speech on Thursday.
“If these countries can be permanently destabilised by Russia, then that also makes us vulnerable, it makes us all vulnerable. We can no longer afford grey areas in Europe,” she added.
Baerbock’s comments came as she hosted 17 foreign ministers from EU and candidate countries, including Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba, for a conference in Berlin focused on EU enlargement.
The war raging in Ukraine has forced the EU to revive the stalled debate on enlargement.
The European Commission is due to publish an annual assessment next week of candidate countries’ progress in implementing the key institutional, judicial and economic reforms needed to be fit for EU membership.
But the bloc also needs to deeply re-think its own institutional, financial and decision-making frameworks to ensure it remains efficient with more members. European Council President Charles Michel has pitched 2030 as the deadline for the EU to be ready to enlarge, but the European Commission has distanced itself from such a timeline.
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