EU Enlargement: ‘I see more benefits than risks’, Bulgarian Deputy PM Gabriel says

Euronews Correspondent Sasha Vakulina sits down with four of Europe’s business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos to discuss how EU expansion might affect voters concerned with economic decline across the bloc.

READ MORE : https://www.euronews.com/2024/01/20/eu-enlargement-i-see-more-benefits-than-risks-bulgarian-deputy-pm-gabriel-says

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#Globalconversation

Nearly 20 years after the European Union’s Big Bang enlargement in 2004 the blocks longto ambition to accept new members has experienced a striking Revival beyond the moral and geopolitical Arguments for the eu’s E expansion he there also a business case to be made I’m very pleased to have the

Speakers here with us today at the session uh on my left miloo SP primee minister of Montenegro thank you very much uh also we have with us rostislav shura Deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Maria Gabriel Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for foreign affairs of Bulgaria thank you

And Christian Levan president and chief executive officer Scania from Sweden Alliance of SEO climate lead welcome to everybody who is joining us here in the room at Davos at the world economic Forum annual meeting the geopolitical and moral case for EU enlargement is clear now if done right it will bring

Greater stability to the eu’s Eastern neighborhood and provide incredible economic opportunities to tens of millions of Europeans outside the EU borders but what’s in it for EU voters concerned about jobs concerned about inflation and what’s in it for businesses concerned about the use stagnating productivity let’s start with

You prime minister so I think I’ll start from the perspective that is not often seen in Europe because as a Japanese student uh I would take a perspective maybe from the Far East uh as you might remember in the 19986 we had Plaza aord that basically had uh currencies of

Japan Germany and France heavily uh appreciating after that and then we have the dollar being devalued what it did uh to Japan you had like 20 years of uh you know they they call it lost decades they had like uh big issues structural issues that happened afterwards we didn’t see

That in Europe and nobody ever actually noticed that at least in Europe Europe I don’t see many people talking about it uh and that’s an obvious uh case to me that even the big countries such as Germany France Etc they definitely have benefits of of joining you and having

Such a big Market to cushion all of these external uh big uh pressures uh big factors there like this uh was was something that you know Germany and France they continue growth didn’t have any big bubbles uh until 2008 there was a basically there was Global financial

Crisis but before before that they they didn’t face the same destiny that Japan faced let’s ask some of the existing members Deputy Prime Minister Maria Gabrielle what’s your take on this well I think that first when we talk about jobs I think that we need to to think

About young people and people with skills and uh the enlargement is always showing that we have access to those young people that will not leave their region they will stay and they will be there really to co-create to shape the solutions of the future the second if

You’d like to to attract investment we need to connect different regions we need to to have infrastructure energy or climate all these in order to expand the market we need we need really to the the enlargement and finally even for inflation let’s be very honest there is

A lot of external factors for inflation and enlargement is transforming them into something that we can manage that we can control even and at least to mainstream and to reduce some of the risks so I definitely see benefits much more than risks yeah and uh finally the business perspective yeah coming out of

A small country such as Sweden we we can only be the witness of of free trade is working free trade is what is creating wealth so there is no reason why why we should not be able to tell the young people the future Workforce the consumers that this is a threat it’s not

A threat um Deputy Prime Minister Gabrielle let let me continue here with you now you have served two terms in the European commission and now serve as the Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria which uh makes you just perfectly placed to EXP explain some of the tensions over enlargement between the EU commission

And the member states on one hand and among member states on the other now what accounts for this and how can we overcome this with a stronger business case help with geopolitics and domestic politics continue to get in the way there and maybe if I can I can add the

Before I was in the European Parliament so you have the institutional triangle with experience in the European Parliament the commission and now in the council uh well I think that we should make an additional effort really uh not to separate the different arguments because when we talk about solidarity

The transformative power of enlargement that means business case that means new opportunities for business for investment how we can uh increase the attractiveness and for me enlargement in that case it’s always shared values we need to talk about this because it’s something that we we we share in this

Difficult World rule of law democracy it’s also our capacity to respond to Global challenges that’s enlargement that’s what we need to address okay if we show to our citizens that on daily base in their daily life they are benefits will’ll be much more uh able to

Convince them so I think that on one side we have always to put a little bit more visibility on the strengths on the other side of course there are challenges because what is the alternative I think that there is no alternative but we need to address the challenges and these challenges are

Internal both for EU and the countries that would like to be members of the European Union in that in that case I must say that we need to to address some of the internal reforms that that we need in the European Union I think that we need to change the approach when I

Was digital commissioner that was the regional roaming agreement that was so an important step now we have the Innovation agenda there is so many young talented people in the the region digital Innovation hubs how they’re working in deep Tech or in ftech I think that we need really now to talk a little

Bit more and much more I must say on this positive side uh Christian Le skya has a unique perspective to contribute because your company invested heavily in some of those 2004 accession countries like Poland for example what are some of the advantages a Global European company

Like Scania was able to gain back from that 2000 and for enlargement and what risks and opportunities for European businesses do you see in the current range of candidate countries yeah look SC is a global company but we are also very European we have uh let’s say 50%

Of our customers are European based 75% of our suppliers are European based um if we uh U think about our Factory footprint it’s in France it’s in the Netherlands it’s in Poland and it’s in Sweden uh so it’s a kind of a dependence that we have uh well in interdependence

That we have if we only take since 2004 the Polish economy if I’m rightly informed has grown about three times since then our sales of vehicles to Poland and the total Market total Polish market has increased five times if we look to our services sales which is so

Important for the profitability of a company supplying trucks has increased 10 times so so that’s just giving you the magnitude on the Polish ERS today uh with more than a million vehicles are dominating uh the European Hol industry you uh polish drivers extremely important to keep Europe rolling and

Ukrainian drivers we saw when when they were moving back after the fullscale invasion of Russia when they were moving back to defend their country that was a shock to the European manufacturing system because we were suddenly lacking 30,000 Ukrainian drivers so so there are a lot of parallels also when you look

Sizewise and and we are in Ukraine also since 30 years we have our own workshops our own importer ship our own head office there and we see no reason why Ukraine could not follow and and and be a future Poland from our our point of view and and we can only encourage other

Private companies to take the advantage to come to Ukraine and invest in Ukraine already now we as an example are doing our best year ever we did our best year ever 2023 in Ukraine based on on the huge need of Transport that is uh coming partly because of the war and partly

Because of the the development as part of the EU I think we would see this development not only for Ukraine but we would see it for Montenegro we would see it for other countries joining the EU in a very similar Manner and some of the new markets here in the EU are very

Competitive and that’s good for us well that’s the question right how how it is good but yet could it be tricky then also with some of the challenges of their competitiveness well I you could see that as a challenge or you could see that as an opportunity I see that as an

Opportunity I think it would be very good for us to have a bit of more internal competition in Europe I think we have become a little bit fat and happy and you see productivity coming down as a result sh Deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine

Ukraine’s enthusiasm for EU membership has put enlargement somehow back to the top of the political agenda now Ukraine is however the largest and the most populous candidate country after turkey and is fighting uh the war of aggression for almost 2 years now with the full scale Invasion so some EU voters in

Member states will be concerned about whether the EU can so to say digest Ukraine easily what do you have to say about that also given what Christian L just said about in many cases companies already working MH Frankly Speaking I’ve heard from Christian more about opportunities rather than challenges and

More about the stimulus for the competition the European Union was much smaller when they took Poland and they digested it so I think this this is won’t won’t be a problem the second I think we should focus on the synergies um for the last seven decades I think we forgot that peace and

Security this is not for granted because we had a very good period of continuous development maybe with some Financial pauses but it was continuously growing and improving the quality of life of of people but then something happened that nobody of us in the Civilized world could imagine please imagine that in

Your country some other country comes in what it will mean for your citizens and it happens so that Ukraine has what to contribute in the EU about the security about the defense about the military Tech because even now if we even look at the Ukrainian Battlefield and we need to

Supply the armors and ammunitions the European Defense industry and military attack IND industry is not ready even to supply not even to replace the warehouses but just to supply the current needs and we have this industry and this is not our industry this is the industry for the defense and security

For the whole European Union another thing is about the economic synergies the first is about the markets because the the new entrance this is a big market for for many companies and at the same time this is a very good contribution to manufacturing to the domestication of uh some resources of

The value chains because on the example of Ukraine uh we do understand that we have people very skilled very well educated people second we have natural resources which the European Union lacks at the moment if you take the the list of the critical minerals iron ore the biggest

Deposits and uh the biggest production of iron ore uh lithium that we already mentioned during the discussion the second biggest deposit in Europe graphite the the first biggest deposit manganes and I think titanium the biggest deposits in the world so this is what we will contribute in uh into the

Into the whole European Union oil and gas the biggest deposits and renewable potential for the Renewables for the onore wind for the territory for the solar so it it will definitely make the whole system stronger and more sustainable so I would I would look at this and as a long-term business project

Where you get the very decent return investing in the development of those territories uh prime minister U swes now most of the western Balkans countries have been somehow stuck in this process in the waiting room for like an entire generation your country Montenegro is specifically seen as one of the best

Performing candidate countries in the neighborhood now what economic arguments do you use to make your case in Brussels for a speedy accession process somebody who comes from a private sector like myself it was pretty puzzling to see a situation that uh Montenegro and some other countries from the Western

Balkans and The Wider region uh we lack that economic uh connection with EU actually so when I became a minister technocrat Minister of Finance in 2020 uh we inherited the country there was uh infrastructure was fully built by the companies financiers out of EU uh the

Main tourists uh as is a tourist country that receives uh millions of tourists every year uh the main tourists were coming out of Russia we did a lot to change that so now uh uh number of Russian tourists be became like seven or 8% so it’s way less and dependence on

The Russian market for tourism we signed with EI a big investment deal on our Railways uh within Montenegro so that was the first time ever that we get like such a big investment from from Europe uh then we with the the private Market obvious with the EU growth plan what I

Tell to EU guys is like hey it’s not about that montenegro’s finances are pretty pretty healthy we have 60% debt over GDP we are like fiscal deficit within the CR Mastery criteria so we can Finance most of the things ourselves but the EU growth plan is so important

Because it’s such a strong signal to the private sector Montenegro used to be more like Mongolia or Kazakhstan in the terms of the economic structure but then we were like uh econom ge geopolitically or strategically Brussels so that discrepancy doesn’t work long term so if

You want to be uh if you want to be part of the club you have to be both economy and value based so I think this is the winning combination and I I really think that EU has to step up their game and I think they’re doing it finally we’re

Going to have a big in investment cycle in next five to six years in Montenegro we have uh we expect EU companies and you finance and ‘s infrastructure vehicles to be much more active than they used to be before and uh we are we

Are ready for that uh and I think EU is finally ready we somehow have heard much more Western Europe leading the enlargement discussions over the past decade or decades uh should Eastern Europe Central Europe Balkans have an rather more equal saying Mr sh what’s your take on that

Initially I think there W the whole signs because when the war started I think that the Eastern European countries and they were the strongest backers of joining Ukraine but in fact uh the last half a year you see what’s going on with the Ukrainian Agri products was blocking the borders I

Think this is the case when the niche problems start impact the domestic politics we overall we feel the very strong support now as an never uh of the core countries of the EU like the Germany like the France uh like Italy uh that are basically the core supporters and we have seen this

Changing position of not every Eastern European because the Bulgaria was quite I would say quite strong but some of the European countries in fact Eastern European countries have changed a little bit you know what countries I’m referring to their position but I believe that the European values and the

Long-term strategic Vision will will win in this uh this is very interesting how do we bring these business benefits into bigger make it more important also given Bulgaria’s position when it comes to the Black Sea well I don’t agree that first we are talking about Western Balkans

Because of Russia it’s simply not true remember the Bulgarian presidency of the council with the Western balcon Summit in 2018 for a first first time again the Western Balkans were on the top of the European agenda and after we already have seen the digital agenda Innovation

Agenda the new growth plan that is we have now we have really now a huge investment and I think that we should definitely here see how all together we can uh Advance second I must say that following my personal experience when we have our Foreign Affairs ministerial meetings it’s always Central and Eastern

Europe Europe talking about enlargement Western balcans and Ukraine it’s me it’s my colleague from Slovenia from Croatia and I think that even some sometime when we have some tensions it’s important to discuss and I think that some of the reactions are because we have our experience and we don’t want to see

Other countries with the feeling to be treated like second category of citizens and I think that we should learn from the previous enlargement I’m giving the example of Bulgaria what that means mechanism of cooperation verification for more than 10 years just that was ended last year uh that’s important rule

Of law democracy but let’s work since the very beginning and I think again Bulgaria and Romania are not in shenen why all the technical criterias are fulfilled since 11 years I think that sometime we should take a little bit of time and to discuss about this because

Some of the reactions are not only internally motivated they are because we would like somehow to anticipate and not to have the same attitude that we were already we felt somehow during the the years and this the other argument that I would like to use we must stay much more

Focused to show how we can transform the challenges into opportunities Bulgaria stopped the ban from for the export of the Ukrainian grain that was not an easy d decision three days all Farmers on the street but we managed to explain to them that that’s an extraordinary opportunity to

Increase the connectivity in this part of the of Europe to talk about infrastructure rail system or uh roads and that means much more benefits for markets for companies for Citizens it’s not easy but I think that that’s why I’m not sure that we started again to talk about Western Balkans because only of

The Russian aggression in Ukraine I think that because we started finally not to talk only about chapters Montenegro I always remember the numbers for many years we are talking about this we started to talk about competitiveness infrastructure regions young people perspectives security Independence sovereignty strategic choice I think

That that’s why now we have a change of the agenda but that’s the right way we should continue in this Direction that’s all we have time for today thank you very much thank you thank you