The European UnionWestern Balkans Summit in Salonica (21/6) represented the first formal meeting under the auspices of the EU between the leaders of the 25, the three candidate countries (Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey) and the five States of the region of the Western Balkans: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia-Montenegro. The conclusions of the meeting endorsed the irreversible process of integration of the Western Balkans that will lead in future to the membership of the five (Croatia is the only one of them to have already presented its official application for EU membership). The meeting was also an occasion to resume bilateral dialogues between the Balkan States, in particular between Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo. The President of the European Commission Romano Prodi declared that the process of the unification of Europe shall be completed only once the countries of the Balkans have become members of the Union”.
