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Energising EU enlargement?

27 May 2021 - 10:07
Bron: Jörg Peter Rademacher / Pixabay
The prospects of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans

This Clingendael series ‘The Green Agenda for the Western Balkans’ provides an inside perspective on the EU climate ambitions for the Western Balkan Six (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo*, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) and the challenges ahead. In this first contribution, we analyse the state of affairs with regard to decarbonisation.

With the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans, the 2050 climate neutrality goal of the European Union has been extended to the six countries in South-Eastern Europe that aspire to join the Union. The Green Agenda is a promising tool for fostering climate and energy policy measures in the Western Balkans, a region with high vulnerability to climate change risks and little energy diversification away from coal. But could the Green Agenda also be a catalyst for renewed interest and enhanced political engagement, leading to a much-needed impetus to the EU enlargement process? This policy brief asks how the Green Agenda can work in the interest of both the objective of a climate neutral continent and the EU accession of the Western Balkan countries.

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Follow  @Wouter_Zweers@KristinaNaunova & @giulia_cretti on Twitter.

More policy briefs in this series

Webinar

Watch the webinar 'The prospects of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans' below with Stine Rasmussen (DG CLIMA, European Commission), Kristina Naunova (Climate Action Network - CAN), Radovan Nikčević (Regional Cooperation Council), Wouter Zweers and Louise van Schaik (the Clingendael Institute).