Chisinau, July 15 (Navigator, Petr Alekseev) – Former Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, appointed head of the European Commission for 2014-2019, said that in the next five years no new members will appear in the EU.
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“In five years there will be no new member states joining the EU. Today it is difficult to imagine that any of the candidate countries with which we are negotiating will fulfill all accession criteria on time. Not a single new candidate country will fulfill these criteria by 2019,” he said during a meeting of the European Parliament.
The politician believes that a number of European countries need “reliable and honest European perspectives.”
“This applies, first of all, to the Western Balkans, because this part of Europe needs European prospects,” he noted, without, however, saying anything about the member countries of the Eastern Partnership, which include Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia.
The European Union has currently granted candidate status to six countries: Albania, Iceland, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and Montenegro. Iceland, on its own initiative, suspended the process of European integration, and Turkey has been pursuing it for more than 40 years, writes Moldnews.