European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said on 18 November that integrating Montenegro, Albania or Moldova into the European Union would not be a big problem, given the population size of these countries.
“Do you know how small Montenegro is! It is three times smaller than Vienna, Toulouse and Stuttgart,” Kos stressed at the EU enlargement forum held in Brussels on 18 November.
“Of course, there is absolutely no need for reforms (within the EU) to welcome these countries (into the union),” said the European commissioner, who herself comes from one of the EU’s smallest members, Slovenia.
Kos, however, insists that preparations for enlargement need to be taken very seriously, both within the EU and especially in the candidate countries. Montenegro, which is considered the closest to EU membership, has 625,000 inhabitants.
Albania, which is also progressing in the negotiations, has about 2.7 million inhabitants and Moldova has a population of just under three million. In her comments on the forum, Marta Kos said that together the three candidates have about 6.6 million citizens.
The EU has a population of 450 million. The largest candidate country with a chance to join is Ukraine, with a population of about 32 million.
Marta Kos made these statements in the presence of the prime ministers of two countries she described as small and easily integrated, namely the Republic of Moldova and Montenegro.