IKV Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Nas participated in the international conference entitled “Catching up with the Rest of Europe” organised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Southeast European Cooperation Process (SEECP PA) and the Kosovo Assembly on 19 June 2020. The opening speeches of the conference were delivered by President of the Assembly of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani Sadriu, Head of the EU Office in Kosovo and EU Special Representative Nataliya Apostolova and SEECP PA Standing Committee Chair Fitore Pacolli-Dalipi.

The first panel session of the conference was held under the theme “A Renewed Approach to the Accession Process: Will It Change the Dynamics?”. The panellists of the session, which was moderated by Fitore Pacolli-Dalipi, included EP Rapporteur for Kosovo Viola von Cramon-Taubadel, Dr. Aidan Hehir from the Westminster University, sociologist and Croatia’s former First Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic, Bodo Weber from the Berlin-based Democratization Policy Council and Prof. Bekim Baliqi from the University of Pristina along with IKV Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Nas.

In her speech, IKV Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Nas stated that the revised accession methodology while entailing some positive aspects would not bring about a radical innovation. IKV Secretary General Nas indicated that the success of the enlargement process will be determined by EU’s political will and credibility as well as the determination to implement reforms on part of candidate states. Referring to the term “Western Balkans” as an artificial categorisation, Nas stressed that the Balkans should be taken up as a whole. Underscoring that Turkey was part of the Balkans, she emphasized that a discriminatory approach towards Turkey would imply creating new divisions in the region and thus would risk undermining the values EU was aiming to promote.

A video recording of the webinar is available here.