Brussels, 27 September 2023 (MIA) - It’s good that there is a date, 2030, on the table regarding EU enlargement, but rather than focus on the date, let’s focus on steps in the accession negotiations. Because if I can say from my experience when my country Malta was a candidate country, you need steps, and if you are going faster in addressing the recommendations being given to you, then you have to be ready to take the next step, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said in an interview with the European Newsroom (enr), which brings together participating news agencies from across Europe, including North Macedonia’s Media Information Agency – MIA.

"Every country has its own path, but let’s not disappoint those millions of people who look to Europe as their home,” said Metsola.

According to her, if Ukraine and Moldova are ready, then accession negotiations should be able to start and incremental steps could then be taken step by step.

"It is clear that we need to be adaptable with what we want to be granted and how we had Member States rebuild and reconstruct on enlargement. I hope that this will be the main focus of next week's meeting of the European Political Community," Metsola added.

She mentioned that next year marks 20 years since the 2004 enlargement of the EU, when 10 countries joined the Union.

"And I think it's a milestone to celebrate that the transformative effect of EU membership on all these ten countries has been amazing. And that's one thing that we need to continue to see," the EP President said.

Metsola referred to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s statement in her State of the Union address before the European Parliament, noting that deepening integration and widening the Union are not mutually exclusive.

"But it is also one that requires work. How do we see the next five years? How will we negotiate what is essentially an emphasis that needs to be completely reviewed? How do we view enlargement? When we talk about reform, how are we going to be prepared? We are internalising a huge reform process inside the parliament in order for us to be adaptable to the next commission. How do we hear commissioners? How do we hold the commission more to account?," said Metsola, adding that “a very difficult discussion” is ahead with the member states on all reforms.

According to her, when talking about enlargement, the situation of being stuck on the Schengen accession of Romania and Bulgaria, blocked by the Netherlands and Austria at the Council of the EU, should also be looked at.

"So, this is what I mean. The difficulties are there,” Metsola pointed out.

She stressed that one of the most significant benefits of the EU and what people from outside the EU or Romania and Bulgaria look at when thinking about the EU is that there is freedom of movement.

"Freedom of movement means that you can travel, work. How much it actually costs from an economic point of view, not from migration, human point of view, economic point of view of things being stuck at the border… The reason why or the instinct to close the borders is because our external border policy does not work well enough. In other words, if we manage to have proper checks, proper processes at the external border, there would not be a need to worry and to introduce internal borders. And that is something that I think us as bosses taking decisions with responsibility have to ask ourselves: whether our migration policy on the external border works. I am convinced that if our external border policy is coherent and consistent internally, we will not need to have such prolonged borders," said Metsola.

The EP President noted in terms of the reforms that a year ago, a huge Convention on the Future of Europe was held with amazing opening and closing ceremonies, bringing together citizens from all over Europe to discuss the future of the EU.

"And absolutely nothing has happened since. I think it's one that we have to question. And if I were a citizen, and I know because I used to be a youth activist in this regard, you know, I would have been pretty pissed off with my leaders if nothing had been done. Now you can say, what does it mean to be doing something? You know, you can start with treaty change, you can end with treaty change," said Metsola.

In the interview, she also refers to the elections for the European Parliament in June 2024, stressing that there is a lot of work ahead for the EU next year, but she also expresses optimism that it will be successfully completed.

"So it's big here ahead of us, but we're pretty confident that we will manage to actually continue in this. I would write to say a Europe that is not only work in crisis to crisis, but also trying to do to look ahead in terms of what kind of Europe we want," Metsola said.

She doesn’t fear that holding the European elections in June, instead of in May as before and the possible lower turnout of voters, would bring more MPs to extremist parties, pointing out that it is necessary to work with citizens, to explain European policies to them and to stimulate them to vote.

"You understand that we have citizens who are frustrated, who feel marginalised, who feel ignored by mainstream parties… to look at those votes that they've lost and ask themselves why? Because they do not talk enough to those people who are marginalised, who have no jobs, who are in rural areas, who feel abandoned or who are in urban areas, who feel unprotected. And that's where we need to tackle that," Metsola notes.

However, she believes that a majority in the “pro-European constructive centre” will remain.

"And that will mean that the next parliament will be able to elect its president from that centre to that we can elect the next president of the Commission from that centre and continue because this is positive. If you want to see that aspect of this Parliament is that legislation is inherited from one mandate to another. As about the Commission President. I think she's done a very good job. She has not had an easy mandate. If you think about everything we have gone through, and I think we can also celebrate the fact that we have the first woman president of the European Commission who has faced the odds and has done very well," Metsola stressed.

The EP President is optimistic that the next European Parliament composition will continue to show its strength, will represent the citizens and will be very much pro-European, constructive and human-centric in its decisions.

"So I would say it depends on the willingness. You know, you can hide behind legal obstacles and say, Oh, it's the council's fault or it's the Commission's fault, etc. I'm President of the Parliament, I want to be the player on the table and I want to be the one that actually brings solutions to those that to that table are not one that blocks. I've tried to do this during the past almost two years of my presidency. It has not been easy," said Metsola.

According to her, in five years, as is the mandate of the EU bodies, many positive things can be done for European citizens and people can be assured that the policies implemented by the institutions of the Union are human-centric.

Roberta Metsola was first elected to the European Parliament in 2013, as candidate of Malta’s Nationalist Party and the European People’s Party. In November 2020 she was elected as the First Vice-President of the European Parliament, and following the death of the incumbent president David Sassoli, Metsola was elected as president of the European Parliament in January 2022, becoming the youngest ever president, the first Maltese person to hold the office, and the first female president since 2002.

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