Erweiterungspaket 2023 Westbalkan und Türkei

The Commission welcomes the CoR’s commitment to foster engagement with the enlargement countries, including by setting up, where appropriate, Joint Consultative Committees and organising the annual Enlargement Day conferences.
The new version of the assessment framework ‘Principles of Public Administration’, developed jointly by the Commission and SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Government and Management Administration) and adopted in November 2023 incorporated the dimensions of multi-level and sub-national governance across the indicators, both in the principles looking into evidence-based policy-making, as well as those linked to accountability, service delivery and public finance management. SIGMA is currently conducting new assessments in the six Western Balkan partners based on this new methodology. These should be finalised before the end of 2024 and serve as a basis for further reforms and support measures towards empowering the local and regional administrations (LRAs) within their respective administrations
The Commission cooperates with LRAs in the Western Balkans through existing regional structures, notably NALAS (Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe). Under the Covenant of Mayors project, supported by the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Commission cooperates with NALAS on building network and capacities of local authorities that commit themselves to taking concrete actions to combat climate change and promote sustainable energy in order to strive for a better, more sustainable future for their citizens. Representatives of NALAS are invited to participate in events organised in the framework of the project to improve knowledge and strengthen internal capacities. A helpdesk for cities and municipalities in the Western Balkans and Türkiye is being set up, and NALAS has been chosen to take on this task.
The Commission fully shares the view that a gradual, predictable, merit-based and reversible approach to acquiring the benefits during the EU accession process is the best way to proceed towards enlargement of the Union. This has also been underlined in the Commission’s communication on pre-enlargement reforms and policy reviews. The Reform and Growth Facility and Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) III will assist beneficiaries in a complementary and mutually reinforcing manner. In this vein, IPA III will support with technical assistance to implement the reforms foreseen in the Facility and to continue the crucial legislative alignment work with the EU acquis. The Commission also concurs with the assessment of the Committee (CoR)that gradual integration needs to be underpinned by strong commitment to implementing the necessary reforms, in particular fundamental reforms including the rule of law.