Dr. G?zim Visoka:

I thank Deputy Haughey. With regard to resistance and fear of cheap labour, demographics is a major problem for western Balkans. Croatia has lost almost 10% of its population. Albania and Serbia are losing en masse. The western European member states have not really utilised structurally the labour force from the western Balkans but Germany, Switzerland and Austria have integrated that in their national policies. They create special schemes to get the brains, the most educated and the most talented to their labour force. The major issue is not en massemigration but draining these societies of staff, civilians and personnel around the country. All countries are experiencing shortages.

Kosovo itself is losing a lot of its population to migration. Albania cannot find a labour force. They have to bring people from Asia. Bangladesh and other countries are using schemes to come to the Balkans. In waves of migration, western Balkan countries' citizens come to the EU and then Asian ones replace them in the region. There is an increasing number of Indonesian and southern African countries which try to fill the void. It is a big complaint among companies across the region that they cannot fill jobs. Obviously, it is the very low payment there.

For the EU, I share the view that they might agree to do cheaper work, but certainly it is a gain for the EU to get a ready-made labour force. Each of them has cost those countries €100,000 or more to educate and then the EU takes them prepared. The damage is done in the long term for the region. The question is how to control that and make sure that it is balanced. Integration into the EU can halt that. It is a 17 million customer market. It is not big and the EU can absorb and manage it. The EU is the main partner already when it comes to trade and relations.

On NATO's role, it is a really important question. NATO has an open-door policy for all countries in the region. The only country that has openly opposed NATO's membership is Serbia. They have signed Partnership for Peace but they try to maintain their military neutrality policy. In fact, it has not been a military neutrality policy because it has mostly shifted when it comes to security to Russia and China in terms of their purchases and strategic alliances.

NATO has opened its door to North Macedonia and Montenegro recently - they being the newest members - and that has offered a lot of stability to those countries. The long-term prediction has been that for these countries to join the EU, they had to join NATO first. That has been the expectation, because NATO brings more stability and certainty than the EU itself. I know that Ireland may have had in the past two weeks the debate about neutrality, but countries in the Western Balkans have the opposite view. They really would like to join NATO for historical reasons and they see it as the only way to secure and safeguard their long-term safety and existence as states.

The two countries that are in trouble are Kosovo and Bosnia. Bosnia, especially the Serbian part, cannot agree to join NATO. The Bosnian Serbs, backed by Russia and to a certain extent by Serbia, are opposing integration in NATO. On the other side, Croats and Bosniaks are willing to join NATO because of historical fears that being outside this alliance, they will be prey for external interventions. Russia's role comes through that, utilising Serbs in Bosnia as well as via Serbia to undermine the EU. They tried that in North Macedonia and Montenegro but they failed.

When it comes to Kosovo, four member states of NATO do not recognise Kosovo - similar to those that are in the EU, excluding Cyprus. They have continuously blocked Kosovo's progress with regard to NATO membership. NATO has the largest peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. They are working with the Kosovo security force but there is a political blockage in Brussels when it comes to Kosovo's perspective and that is being utilised by non-western forces, especially hybrid forces in north Kosovo.

The third point was decoupling. The example of North Macedonia and Albania was really a significant one when it came to decoupling. It became an issue for approximately two years between 2018 and 2022, whereby the EU was willing to let Albania get the candidate status but block North Macedonia because of Bulgaria's veto. France hid behind Bulgaria to block both countries opening of accession talks. Certainly, we have seen that individual accession or progress has been troublesome. Only en blocor collective progress seems to be the way that they perceive as fair, as just and also balanced to avoid within a region these conditionalities that come later. Certainly, a view of bloc integration is seen as more important and less destabilising that one after the other.