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EU ministers seek to reassure Balkan nations
AFP - Saturday, March 28
HLUBOKA NAD VLTAVOU, Czech Republic (AFP) - - EU foreign ministers tried Friday to reassure Balkan nations about their European future after German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a pause in EU enlargement.
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"The door to the EU has not been closed," said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband as he arrived for talks with his European counterparts at Hluboka castle in the southern Czech Republic.
"It is right to continue the process that leads to enlargement," he added, while stressing that there were conditions attached to gaining membership which could not be dropped.
"There is no reason to stop anything," stressed Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, words that will comfort Western Balkan nations which have been promised a place in the club, but with no dates.
The countries "will probably not be eligible any time soon" as they have first to fulfil the political and economic criteria, he said.
"But they must have this perspective because enlargement is about reforms and in order to reform they must know in the name of what they are reforming."
After a first day of talks focussed on the Middle East and Afghanistan, the 27 EU foreign ministers will talk on Saturday with the Balkan nations working toward membership; Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.
Turkey's minister will also be there. Turkey has begun the EU membership process, but unlike states in the volatile Balkans has not received assurances that it will eventually be allowed to join up.
"If we shut the door there will be new conflicts in the Balkans," Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn warned.
Facing an uncertain economic and institutional future, some European nations, led by Germany, want to slow the EU's enlargement process, leaving Balkan countries feeling like hostages to the recession.
Last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a "phase of consolidation" in the EU once Croatia becomes the 28th member in a few years.
Some EU governments feel this is not the time to consider bringing a batch of new, poorer eastern European nations into the bloc which has already expanded from 15 to 27 members since 2004 and has now plunged into recession.
However according to several European officials, the EU is unlikely to adopt the German proposal to formally draw up the EU drawbridge, though the idea has found support in some nations such as Belgium and the Netherlands.
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Enlarge Photo
British foreign secretary David Miliband talks to the press before an informal meeting of EU Foreign Ministers at the The Hluboka nad Vltavou chateau. EU foreign ministers tried Friday to reassure Balkan nations about their European future after German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a pause in EU enlargement.
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