Paris – ESI brainstorming on measuring progress and assessing failure in EU accession

21 January 2014
Agneza Rusi – Milica Delevic – Hedvig Morvai – Fiona McIlwham
Agneza RusiMilica Delevic – Hedvig Morvai – Fiona McIlwham

In this brainstorming at the Swedish Emabssy in Paris the discussion focused on the core practical question of how the annual progress reports can best promote reform efforts in candidate and potential candidate states. Some of the questions discussed were:

  1. Who reads the progress reports now? How are they now being used?
    How can they help reformers – inside the countries but also outside? How can they help change perceptions in such critical member states over time? How to be "strict and fair" and accessible?
    How can they set an agenda for debate as effectively as the OECD Pisa reports?
  2. How to produce and then use "roadmaps" for individual chapters that allow producing score cards of concrete annual progress?
  3. How can one improve the more general sections on political and economic criteria in the progress reports?"

Participants:

  1. Milica Delevic, Deputy Secretary General, EBRD, London (former director of European Integration Office of Serbia)
  2. Agneza Rusi, Director, Directorate for EU, MFA of Macedonia, Skopje
  3. Hedwig Morvai, Executive Director, European Fund for the Balkans, Belgrade
  4. Fiona McIlwham, Cabinet of Director General Danielsson, DG Enlargement, European Commission, Brussels (former British Ambassador to Albania)
  5. Lawrence Meredith, Head of Enlargement Policy and Strategy, DG Enlargement, European Commission, Brussels
  6. Hagar Ligtvoet, Coordinator EU Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, MFA of the Netherlands, The Hague
  7. Onny Jalink, Senior Policy Adviser Western Balkans, MFA of the Netherlands, The Hague
  8. Johan Berglund, Deputy Director, EU Department, MFA of Sweden, Stockholm
  9. Ola Svenningsson, Deputy Director, Division of EU Enlargement, MFA of Sweden, Stockholm
  10. Gerald Knaus, Chairman, ESI, Istanbul/Paris
  11. Kristof Bender, Deputy Chairman, ESI, Vienna