{"id":466586,"date":"2026-10-01T18:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T16:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/10\/01\/von-der-leyen-a-pristina-credo-in-un-futuro-europeo-per-il-kosovo-ma-servono-riforme\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T19:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T17:23:07","slug":"von-der-leyen-in-pristina-i-believe-in-a-european-future-for-kosovo-but-reforms-are-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/10\/01\/von-der-leyen-in-pristina-i-believe-in-a-european-future-for-kosovo-but-reforms-are-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"Von der Leyen in Pristina: \u201cI believe in a European future for Kosovo.\u201d But reforms are needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Following the official visit to Tirana<\/a>, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is continuing her tour of the Western Balkans with a stop in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, where she met with Prime Minister Albin Kurti. \u201cI have said it before, and I will say it again: I believe in a European future for Kosovo, quite clearly,\u201d<\/strong> said von der Leyen at a press conference alongside the Prime Minister, who has been in office since 2021. <\/p>\n

Kurti himself, in December 2022, submitted Kosovo\u2019s official application for membership of the European Union. \u201cIt will be four years in mid-December since I submitted the application in Prague,\u201d the Prime Minister recalled today. The application was handed over to the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU, which was led by the Czech Republic at the time. <\/p>\n

Since then, \u201ca great deal of progress has been made,\u201d von der Leyen assured. And Kurti confirmed: \u201cIt\u2019s clear to see.\u201d The Prime Minister listed some of the country\u2019s achievements, stating that \u201cKosovo is one of the fastest-growing countries<\/strong>\u201d and that its public debt is \u201cthe lowest in Europe\u201d. He also pointed out that the the World Bank has officially removed Kosovo from the list of \u201cfragile and conflict-affected states\u201d<\/a> in July 2025. <\/p>\n

But on the path towards EU membership, Pristina\u2019s next objective remains to be achieved: to obtain candidate country status.<\/strong> The 2022 application for membership has not yet led to the opening of the procedure that precedes the possible granting of that status. The European Commission has repeatedly stated that it is ready to prepare its opinion on Kosovo\u2019s application, but to do so it must first receive a formal request from the Council of the EU. <\/p>\n

It is against this backdrop that von der Leyen\u2019s message on the reforms still required takes place. \u201cKosovo can receive up to \u20ac882 million under the Growth Plan<\/a>,\u201d the President noted. Pristina has already received \u20ac61.8 million in pre-financing. However, to access the remaining funds, \u201ca decisive acceleration of reforms<\/strong> is needed,\u201d as all reforms must be implemented swiftly and the institutions must be fully operational. <\/p>\n

For Pristina, therefore, the path to candidate status also involves speeding up domestic reforms and engaging in dialogue with Belgrade. In the short term, the first institutional step would be precisely what Kurti asked von der Leyen for today: to secure a request from the Council to the Commission to prepare an opinion on the application for membership<\/strong>. It will then be on the basis of that process that Member States will be able to discuss the next steps towards candidate status. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know how deeply European the people of Kosovo feel, and this is a solid foundation on which we must build. Our task is to turn this aspiration into concrete progress towards EU membership,<\/strong>\u201d von der Leyen emphasised during the press conference. The President also outlined some more immediate objectives, including progress on roaming and accession to the SEPA area. <\/p>\n

\u201cKosovo has done its part, and we are ready for the next step towards EU membership,\u201d added Kurti, reiterating his hope for support from Brussels. \u201cWe are counting on your support to champion Kosovo\u2019s needs openly and to grant it candidate country status,\u201d he concluded, addressing von der Leyen. <\/p>\n

From Pristina, the Commission President\u2019s tour continues today to Podgorica, in Montenegro<\/strong>, where von der Leyen will meet President Jakov Milatovi\u0107 and Prime Minister Milojko Spaji\u0107.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Kosovo submitted its official application for membership in 2022, Prime Minister Kurti has stated that \u201cclear progress\u201d has been made. Among other things, the small country\u2019s public debt is \u201cthe lowest in Europe\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7896,"featured_media":466567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[28103,36053,31726,36054,36024,35960,26030],"class_list":["post-466586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-albania-in-2","tag-albert-kurti","tag-kosovo-en","tag-pristina","tag-tirana","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-western-balkans-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466587,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466586\/revisions\/466587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}