LJUBLJANA, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Leaders from Western Balkan countries gathered Monday at Brdo Castle near City Municipality of Kranj, northwest of Ljubljana, to attend the Brdo-Brijuni process summit.
The summit, hosted by Slovenian President Borut Pahor, was attended by leaders from Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Serbia's region of Kosovo and the presiding trio of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The leaders adopted a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to EU enlargement, according to the Slovenian Press Agency STA.
Pahor said the summit was one of the hardest, but managed to reach a consensus.
"It's not an empty compromise. It sends out a powerful message," Pahor said at a press conference after the meeting.
The statement called on the EU to see the Western Balkan region as a whole rather than as individual countries negotiating with the European Commission, said Pahor.
The leaders emphasized that the bloc's enlargement to the whole Western Balkan region is in the EU's political, security and economic interests, as well as a geopolitical urgency and a key political condition for a stable, successful and sustainable European future, according to STA.
The leaders believed enlargement as a mutual process - on the one hand the EU must speed up the process while on the other Western Balkan countries must speed up reforms.
The summit had originally been planned for last year, but had been postponed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic. Enditem
