The South-East Europe Programme of ELIAMEP participated in a joint research project, under the auspices of the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels, which examined the EU member states’ policies towards the EU enlargement in the Balkans. The project, which ran throughout 2014 and early 2015, brought together a large group of researches from seventeen EU member states, and resulted in the compilation of an edited report titled “EU member states and enlargement towards the Balkans”. The report, which was recently published by the EPC, provides a detailed account of how different EU member states understand the past, present, and most importantly the future of the EU enlargement process, with a particular emphasis on the Balkans. On behalf of ELIAMEP’s South-East Europe Programme, Dr. Ioannis Armakolas and Dr. Giorgos Triantafyllou, Head, and Research Fellow of the Programme, respectively, wrote the report’s chapter on Greece, discussing issues such as the official Greek position towards EU enlargement in the Balkans, the current political landscape in Greece, and the various positions of the Greek political parties towards the EU perspective of different Balkan countries. Along this line, the South-East Europe Programme of ELIAMEP, in the following months, will initiate a series of public events and discussions on the topic of EU enlargement towards the Western Balkans, aiming to raise awareness and promote the relevant public debate in Greece.

The report is available here.