European Officials: Time to Complete EU

Johann Sattler (Photo: PrintScreen YouTube)

The chief of the EU Delegation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Johann Sattler, and the charge d’affairs of Belgium’s mission in Bosnia, Benjamin Sturtewagen, wrote in a column published on the occasion of Europe Day on May 9 that it was time to complete the European Union. 

“On Europe Day 2024, when we also celebrate the fall of fascism, we must recollect the immense accomplishment of the united Europe and tirelessly work on completing the vision of the Union’s founders to be completed here in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on the entire continent,” they wrote. In their words, the promise of future within the EU is the guarantee of peace, security and a better future for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who remember the consequences of the conflict. 

While stating that enlargement was one of EU’s most successful policies, Sattler and Sturtewagen assessed that a new dynamic was present in the enlargement process, coupled with the realization that countries that wish to join cannot remain in the Union’s waiting room forever. 

They added that, if the countries of the Western Balkans truly engage in reforms, the European path should be revived and the region offered new possibilities for a more powerful integration into the common European market and for new sources of financing.