On 2 October 2015, the European Policy Centre together with the European Parliament Information Office in Romania and the Romanian Centre for European Policies co-organised a debate in Bucharest on ‘Romania and EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans’. The debate was part of EPC’s project ‘EU member states and enlargement towards the Balkans’, which aims to bridge the widening gap in debates and political choices between Brussels and national capitals on EU enlargement, by investigating the ways in which EU member states, their governments, parliaments, and political constituencies respond to, and try to influence, EU enlargement policy towards the Balkans.
Members of the European and Romanian parliaments, high-level Romanian officials, civil society representatives as well as ambassadors of the Western Balkan countries debated about the EU enlargement policy and Romania’s positions towards future enlargement of the Union and its efforts to support the European integration of its south-western neighbours. The event also saw the launch in Romania of the EPC Issue Paper EU member states and enlargement towards the Balkans.