PRESIDENT OF EUROPEAN COMMISSION URSULA VON DER LEYEN GATHERS LEADERS OF WESTERN BALKAN COUNTRIES AT WORKING LUNCH IN BRUSSELS TOMORROW

BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 18 (ONASA-FoNet) – The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will gather the leaders of the countries of the Western Balkans at a working lunch in Brussels tomorrow, with which she wants to show that in her new mandate, she will pay special attention to the region and the process of enlargement of the European Union. broadcast today by Radio Free Europe.
The main purpose of this meeting, as reported by RSE, is to discuss “reform and growth agendas”, which almost all the countries of the Western Balkan region have submitted to the European Commission, as a precondition for receiving the first payments from the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, which was approved by the EU in May of this year.
Von der Leyen was personally involved in the promotion of that plan, and it was supported by the European Parliament and member states of the EU Council.
According to sources in the EU, the meeting will be a good opportunity to see how far these countries have come with preparations to realize the goals of the Growth Plan.
Through the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, the EU plans to allocate around six billion euros to the countries of the region from 2024 to 2027.
Of that amount, two billion will be grants from the EU, while the rest will be in the form of favorable loans.
Beneficiaries of these funds are all the countries of the region: Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, BiH and Kosovo. (end)