Skopje, 17 November 2023 (MIA) — EU's new Growth Plan for the Western Balkans will boost the region's connectivity and reforms through grants and loans and it should double the economies of the countries, so that from the current average EUR 6,000 per capita GDP reaches EUR 12,000 in ten years, according to European Commission's Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations Director-General Gert Jan Koopman on Friday.

Speaking at a press conference after the first ministerial meeting on the implementation of the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans held in Skopje, he welcomed the energy and dedication of the participants, adding that the meeting was an excellent start of talks that should continue next week in Brussels.

Meeting participants included ministers of finance and economy and the chief negotiators of North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania.

The DG NEAR Director-General said the discussion was much more productive than he had expected. He said the Growth Plan would help remove obstacles for regional markets in integrating into the EU common market by helping with reforms and investments through an EU fund of six billion euros.

Of the six billion euros, almost 860 million are available for North Macedonia.

Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Bojan Marichikj said the Growth Plan was the EC's most ambitious mechanism for the Western Balkan countries' integration processes so far.

"We asked the EU for opportunities and benefits of EU membership while negotiations are ongoing," he said, adding that the plan would help speed up reforms and economic growth.

"The Growth Plan is EU's concrete financial and political investment into North Macedonia and the rest of the Western Balkan countries. We view this plan as a helping hand from the EU to accelerate our membership in the union by 2030," Marichikj said.

The Western Balkans should prepare their own reform agendas on strengthening the rule of law and fundamental rights and submit them within three months.

"We have already established a national structure for the development and implementation of the Growth Plan," Marichikj said.

Minister of Finance Fatmir Besimi told the news conference the Growth Plan was a clear political message from the EU that it considered the region as part of the bloc in the near future.

"This is a plan to finance reforms for growth. This is an opportunity to accelerate growth," Besimi said, stressing that now the region's "GDP is somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the EU average per capita" and the plan would help "double the growth of the region's economy."

"We want to reach that level, and we have a helping hand to do it. So we have clearly defined goals we need to achieve through the reform agenda," he added.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the meeting was a springboard for the implementation of the Western Balkan countries' reform agendas they need to accelerate by the end of the year to have access to the EU's planned funding as soon as next year. mr/