Kosovo debuts as an enlargement candidate at the EESC plenary session, Puka condemns Serbian minister’s statement

Kosovo was represented for the first time as an Enlargement Candidate Member at the plenary session of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). The participation took place on Thursday during a high-level roundtable dedicated to EU enlargement at the European Commission’s Charlemagne building.

The opening session was addressed by EESC President Seamus Boland and European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, who delivered the keynote speech. The closing remarks were delivered by Valentina Superti, Director for the Western Balkans at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG ENEST).

In her speech, Commissioner Kos said that the EU enlargement process goes beyond technical reforms, as it represents a societal transformation that strengthens democracy, institutions and fundamental rights. She highlighted the indispensable importance of civil society for transparency and accountability, recalling that the European Union was created on the shared aspiration for a Europe of peace, cooperation and democratic values, where the wars of the past are never repeated.

In the plenary discussion entitled “Accelerating socio-economic convergence with the EU to boost European growth and competitiveness”, Kosovo was represented by Dren Puka, Executive Director of the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).

Puka expressed his gratitude to the EESC for revising its initial decision, through which Kosovo had been excluded from the Enlargement Candidate Members Initiative.

According to him, the outcome of the EU Growth Plan for the Western Balkans depends on the involvement of citizens and civil society in the relevant reforms. He cited environmental protests in Albania as an illustration of the consequences that may result from implementing reforms without participation and citizen ownership.

He also raised concerns about increasing political and financial pressure on civil society in the Balkans. Puka said that following USAID’s withdrawal, funding for civil society in the Western Balkans has lost more than 120 million euros, with around 26 million euros of that amount relating to Kosovo.

Within the framework of negotiations on the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), he called on EU institutions to prioritize financial support for independent civil society in enlargement countries, treating it as a strategic investment in democratic resilience and the consolidation of Europe.

The response by Puka to a statement made this week by Snezhana Paunović, Serbia’s Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, drew the greatest attention from those present. In a television interview, she had said that, if she were Slobodan Milošević, she would have “ethnically cleansed” Kosovo in 1998.

Puka described the statement as “a reminder of what power does when it feels no responsibility or accountability, and when no one challenges it”. He stressed that war rhetoric remains present in the region and that the European Union cannot remain silent in the face of it.

He linked the issue directly to Commissioner Kos’s keynote speech, in which she presented peace as the European Union’s fundamental value. “Once we are together in the European Union, we no longer wage war,” she said, calling on the 27 member states to support enlargement as an investment in the continent’s shared peace, freedom and prosperity.

“Convergence with the EU is more about embracing European values than anything else,” Puka further said. He added that only concrete EU action can turn Commissioner Kos’s statement, “never again war”, into a promise for the future rather than merely a memory of the past.

Alongside the Executive Director of the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF), representatives of the Union of Independent Trade Unions of Kosovo (BSPK), the United Union of Education, Science and Culture of Kosovo (SBASHK), the Kosovo Business Alliance (AKB), and the Civikos Platform also took part in this plenary session from Kosovo.